Rooting an Android phone... found out why today

[TheForce]

Never fully understood the need to Root a phone or really what that meant in the Android world until today.

I am still building up my new TBolt and decided to manually add my coded ringtones I had developed on my TP2 a winMobile OS and ran into a road block.

Using a file manager software I tried to copy the ring tones to a folder in the system section called "Ringtones" It was several folders deep. I got this message: "You are attempting to access a locked folder without permission. To access and modify this folder you must root your Android OS."
MY first surprise was that it was telling me I was unauthorized but then explaining how to hack through the lack of authorization. Strange!

I did find a way to install the ringtones into that folder using another free ringtone installation app but I also did some reading on Rooting and found references to it but only for a Mot. Droid. Then the warning that using a rooting procedure not designed for the specific phone could brick the phone. I couldn't find a Root procedure for the Thunderbolt.

I did get around the need this time but in the future, how difficult and risky is rooting the Thunderbolt. Is it like Jailbreaking an iphone where you need to redo everytime a new iOS is released?

 

[Ronnie-]

Im not sure the specific method for the thunderbolt at this time, but I am sure one of the one click methods will work soon.
Once you root, you should not have to unroot and root again when new versions of software comes out. I may be mistaken on this, but I cant recall unrooting mine to install a new version.
IF you flash a custom rom after rooting, then you would have to flash back to stock before upgrading to a newly released software.

 

[yourbeliefs]

That is a very new phone. An easy rooting solution is inevitable. It is typically very easy to root a phone. You'll either get a one click solution or you just get into the phones debug mode and type some conmands. That's what I did with my nexus one and my phone improved significantly.

 

[cybok0]

Check out the android forums and xda forums, the android forums should list your phone and have a step by step to root it if it possible, if not keep checking back.

 

[StevenD]

You also cannot use Titanium Backup without rooting your phone. I absolutely love TB. It automatically backs everything up to my SD card on a weekly basis and I manually sync that with Dropbox. So, if my phone goes south, or I want to install a new ROM, everything gets restored in a few mins.

 

[Rey]

I rooted my HTC evo with unrevoked. a one click method. while some of the experts don't really like one click methods i find it works just as good. rooting your phone is like taking the handcuffs off of the os. when updates come around there's always a rom developer who creates a rooted version. all you would need to do is flash it. hell i've tried 5 different roms the last few weeks. but don't just choose any rom. make sure its coming from a reputable developer. right now i'm running gingerbread via cyanogen 7 even though 2.3 isn't out for the evo. reeally good so far. plus like already mentioned above,rooting allows access to apps you couldn't use with an unrooted phone.

 

[mdram]

you dont need to root to add ringtones
put a folder on your sd card called media/ringtones
and it should find them and show them when you assign them
media/wallpaper works for walpaper
there are others too

but i root just because

 

[Rey]

here : http://www.cyanogenmod.com/

maybe they have one for the thunderbolt. its still a work in progress. you will lose HTC sense which i really love but some free widgets and the apps beautiful widgets and ADW launcher ex have filled the void pretty well for me. you're phone will become highly customizable .

 

[mdram]

oh there is a one click now on xda

Easyroot + S-Off - xda-developers

 

[TheForce]

Thanks for all the info. I'm in no hurry as I found my immediate need satisfied. Thanks for the tip on how to get android to detect the ringtones I have on my SD card too.

The one thing I don't want with a root canal is to make my phone another device I have to worry over and have to maintain. I'm just not into this the way some of you are.

But assuming I do want to try it later, I'm thinking that I will need to find a backup app and install that now and get everything backed up now to my SD card as a first step. Next I would Root the phone with the appropriate procedure, either one click or commands- Have to locate the proper proven procedure from one you your suggested linked forums. Finally restore the apps and configuration from my backup file. Do I have this correct?

I had a nice backup program on my TP2 for winmobile and it backed up each day at 4AM and saved the last 4 backups which were self executable restore files on my SD card. These saved me several times. Is there a good backup program that can be installed now and restored after rooting? Seems this is what I would need as opposed to Titanium at least at first.

 

[mdram]

i havent need to backup after rooting

 

[Big Dawg 23]

i havent need to backup after rooting

Its always a good idea. Makes it easier if you like to swap out roms.

 

[mdram]

Its always a good idea. Makes it easier if you like to swap out roms.

yeah, i know, but i dont really keep anything on it, and i havent flashed it yet

 

[Hall]

What file manager app told you you needed to root your phone and how to do it ??

As for rooting it, as long as you don't upgrade to an "official" OS update, you'll never have to "re-root" it. And anytime HTC pushes an update, ROM developers will very quickly incorporate anything useful that HTC adds (or they may have already fixed things!).

 

[TheForce]

Hall- It is Root explorer v 2.14.2 from Speed software. It didn't tell me how to Root, that's why I'm here. It just said to perform the paste of the mp3 files I wanted I needed to root the phone.

I found my favorite backup software for win Mobile- Sprite, now available for the Android OS. It is only $4.99 so I'll probably try it out. I'll be happy if it works as well as what I had on my htc TP2.

 

[Steve Mehs]

I rooted my HTC evo with unrevoked. a one click method. while some of the experts don't really like one click methods i find it works just as good. rooting your phone is like taking the handcuffs off of the os. when updates come around there's always a rom developer who creates a rooted version. all you would need to do is flash it. hell i've tried 5 different roms the last few weeks. but don't just choose any rom. make sure its coming from a reputable developer. right now i'm running gingerbread via cyanogen 7 even though 2.3 isn't out for the evo. reeally good so far. plus like already mentioned above,rooting allows access to apps you couldn't use with an unrooted phone.

I did the samething. Rooted the Evo using Unrevoked months ago, a couple weeks ago loaded the Cyanogen Gingerbread Rom. Hated it, a few days later I restored back to stock rom. Vanilla Android just plain sucks. I love HTC Sense, and I don’t care what anybody absolutely nothing compares to it. All these Roms and customizations you can don’t mean jack to me since I have found nothing at all that even comes close to Sense. I used Laucnher Pro for about 12 hours before I couldn’t take it anymore. I purchased Beautiful Widgets only to a refund shortly after. Only reason I bothered to root was because I felt ‘dirty’ having apps like Facebook and Twitter on my phone and not being able to remove them.

When I loaded other ROMs I had a hell of a time finding apps that came with the phone that I use and getting them to work like NASCAR Mobile, Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV. Found the APK for NASCAR at XDA or somewhere and had problems updating it and once I did get the updated to work I discovered the formatting in the App was all screwed up.

Only thing I miss about having 2.3 was the Gallery and the Camera apps. Both much improved, but that that means losing Sense, no thanks, keep it! I’ll wait 3 months for the Evo 3D and Gingerbread.

 

[JAG72]

There are 2.3 rooms out there with sense

 

[Steve Mehs]

Do they work with the Evo and do they support 4G? A lot of ROMs I've seen don't support Wimax 4G. And what other problems comes along with it? My buddy is runing some custom Rom and the GPS is screwed up. It's a known issue and he's waiting for a nighly build to fix it. Guess what, I'm running stock Rom and my GPS works perfect.

Ones of these days, since I'm rooted I'll change my boot screen to this:

 

[Rey]

I did the samething. Rooted the Evo using Unrevoked months ago, a couple weeks ago loaded the Cyanogen Gingerbread Rom. Hated it, a few days later I restored back to stock rom. Vanilla Android just plain sucks. I love HTC Sense, and I don’t care what anybody absolutely nothing compares to it. All these Roms and customizations you can don’t mean jack to me since I have found nothing at all that even comes close to Sense. I used Laucnher Pro for about 12 hours before I couldn’t take it anymore. I purchased Beautiful Widgets only to a refund shortly after. Only reason I bothered to root was because I felt ‘dirty’ having apps like Facebook and Twitter on my phone and not being able to remove them.

When I loaded other ROMs I had a hell of a time finding apps that came with the phone that I use and getting them to work like NASCAR Mobile, Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV. Found the APK for NASCAR at XDA or somewhere and had problems updating it and once I did get the updated to work I discovered the formatting in the App was all screwed up.

Only thing I miss about having 2.3 was the Gallery and the Camera apps. Both much improved, but that that means losing Sense, no thanks, keep it! I’ll wait 3 months for the Evo 3D and Gingerbread.

I hear ya. by the way to remove the bloatware from your stock rom,the system app remover application from the market works perfectly.

 

[Rey]

Do they work with the Evo and do they support 4G? A lot of ROMs I've seen don't support Wimax 4G. And what other problems comes along with it? My buddy is runing some custom Rom and the GPS is screwed up. It's a known issue and he's waiting for a nighly build to fix it. Guess what, I'm running stock Rom and my GPS works perfect.

Ones of these days, since I'm rooted I'll change my boot screen to this:

lol. the boot animation changer app can help you do that. i think they have that one in their collection of boot animations.