Trying to root old droid 3 - not working

fishacura

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Hello all. New S4 comes this week so I am trying to root an old droid 3 that's no longer using Verizon's service but that I am hoping to play with as a stand alone wifi device.

I am using some of the old one-click methods (including Petes) but none seem to work. It's 2.3.4 and on petes I get a message stating "ERROR: adb could not be granted root access via local.prop method". Not very descriptive. I tried using the motofail files and I get errors like

Unable to chmod /data/local/motofail: No such file or directory

Remount failed: operation not permitted

Failed to copy su to /system/bin/su: Read only file system

It's in USB debugging mode, I have all the drivers, it is set as USB charge only, etc. Not sure why all of a sudden it's not working as the method is the same I used in late 2011 when I rooted mine and nothing should have changed. Anyone have any thoughts on things to take a look at? Very odd!

The only thing I can think of is that it's some sort of driver issue but my device is found by the PC. I was using something from motos site called motohelper_2.0.51_Driver_5.2.0 Maybe that driver is too new as it's not the one I used 18 months ago.
 
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According to some great resources (thanks Pete)! Motorola released a patch that closed the ability to root using the old one-click method. ANYONE have any advice? Is it even possible anymore???
 
most all rooting methods require not to be in usb mode try in mtp mode and let me know if you have any luck I think I run into same issue when rooting my D3 ill try and findmynotes on it
 
most all rooting methods require not to be in usb mode try in mtp mode and let me know if you have any luck I think I run into same issue when rooting my D3 ill try and findmynotes on it

THX for replying. ALL the D3 methods say to set phone to USB charge only mode but I will try ANYTHING once. What exactly is MTP mode and how do I set my phone to it?

Also, from what I am hearing, sounds like motorola may have closed the back-door which allowed the old one-click root methods. So I'm not even sure if someone came up with a new method after that happened. Man I hope I can figure this out!!
 
I'll give it a shot tonight. Cross your fingers and thanks! Odd that there's not more out there on the droid 3. I guess people moved on and moto closed the loophole.
 
It should work but if it doesn't I think there might be 1 other possible way. I will dig for it if this doesn't work for you.
 
It should work but if it doesn't I think there might be 1 other possible way. I will dig for it if this doesn't work for you.


Unzipped but at the same time Norton came back with a "TROJAN" warning so I'd be very careful with this one. I actually already had the motofail files but they did not work. Not sure what norton is blocking or if that's part of the file I need but I"m leery to allow it to pass given it's being flagged as a trojan virus.
 
Unzipped but at the same time Norton came back with a "TROJAN" warning so I'd be very careful with this one. I actually already had the motofail files but they did not work. Not sure what norton is blocking or if that's part of the file I need but I"m leery to allow it to pass given it's being flagged as a trojan virus.

Most stuff like this always throws up flags with anti virus, I personally would ignore it. Just my 2 cents on that. I'll double check tomorrow at work to see if I still have the program I used to root mine. I almost positive I haven't deleated it. Have you tried Pete's Motorola root tool? Sorry see you did. I could only get Pete's to work windows 7 just FYI.
 
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I checked over at xda and the link I provided it the recommend way at this time to root d3, there was also a complaint from anti virus but told to ignore it. Good luck, I miss my ol' d3 sometimes lol
 
I checked over at xda and the link I provided it the recommend way at this time to root d3, there was also a complaint from anti virus but told to ignore it. Good luck, I miss my ol' d3 sometimes lol
Yes I rooted my droid 3 in the past using Petes and motofail as well. That was about 2 years back. I'm now trying to root my wifes.Here's the issue as I understand it. And I got some of this from none other than Pete himself. That original root method exploited a vulnerability with the D3 that motorola has since closed. So it looks as if nobody has since created a new root method for the D3 that will actually work.The one saving grace I may have is the PC driver. The only thing different now is that moto has much newer drivers. Do you happen to know where I can find your driver version? I'm thinking that perhaps if I use an older driver it may trick it into working. Long shot but you never know. Thanks for all the help!!!
 
-One Click ROOT for Any Motorola Device Running GB!

Also found this can give it a try. When I get back to that laptop I will try to just send you that driver file if I can

that will not work on Droid 3 with system version 5.7.906, use MOTOFAIL “Droid 4” by Dan Rosenberg
it works well, your virus protection may see it as a threat, just disable your virus protection, before trying to open, because it can also interfere with rooting even if there is no pop up

make sure you right-click on the motofail_windows.zip file, extract the files to a folder on your PC, and click the ‘run.bat’ file from that folder

make sure drivers are correct
Installing Drivers and Driver errors

watch [video=youtube_share;TTU9OQPWTNk]http://youtu.be/TTU9OQPWTNk[/video] by Tomsgt123



Root using a Mac and Motofail

 
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that will not work on Droid 3 with system version 5.7.906, use MOTOFAIL “Droid 4” by Dan Rosenberg
it works well, your virus protection may see it as a threat, just disable your virus protection, before trying to open, because it can also interfere with rooting even if there is no pop up

make sure you right-click on the motofail_windows.zip file, extract the files to a folder on your PC, and click the ‘run.bat’ file from that folder

make sure drivers are correct
Installing Drivers and Driver errors

watch [video=youtube_share;TTU9OQPWTNk]http://youtu.be/TTU9OQPWTNk[/video] by Tomsgt123



Root using a Mac and Motofail





OK I think it might be a driver issue. I uninstalled all motorola files. Then I reinstalled MotoHelper_2.0.40_Driver_4.9.0 This is an older driver but the one I would have used when I had success. I then connected the phone to the PC but it's looking for a driver. Isn't the install of this motohelper the driver??? Why wouldn't it recognize the phone? It says "Found new hardware...adb interface" and asks if I want to install the driver manually. I click yes and look in the motorola folders installed when I ran motohelper but it doesn't let me pick any of the files. Any ideas?

I tried your driver link above but that didn't take me anywhere (just to the forum main page)



EDIT: Got a newer driver installed. Here's the weird thing now. Extracted motofail to its own directory. I run the run.bat file and one of the first errors I get in the dos window is "cannot open motofail...no such file". But then I notice it's in the zip file but NOT in the folder where I extracted everything. For some reason, this file does not extract.

So then I manually extract the file from the .zip called "motofail" but it just creates a folder. So there seems to be no file called motofail that the run.bat file seems to be looking for.

WTF lol! HELP!!!!!
 
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