It is an increasingly popular activity by many electronics owners to hack their electronic device and alter it from the way it was manufactured. This has been a popular practice for the Playstation Portable, the Nintendo Wii, the Xbox 360, an iPod, a Zune and more. In modern times, this practice has extended to hacking, or “rooting,” a user's mobile phone.
What exactly is rooting?
This is more of a common activity among phones that have applications or are newer and from the smartphone family. Rooting a phone is the main factor and difference between having a regular phone like everyone else in the world has and having one that allows the user to change certain otherwise unchangeable parts of the phone. This may include but may not be limited to changing icons or fonts.
Why do people root their mobile phones?
Homebrew applications are applications not generally found on the marketplace and normally consist of homemade programs that can be downloaded for free. Homebrew applications are possible to install when rooting a mobile phone. It is perhaps among the most popular reasons for wanting to root a mobile phone.
Some reasons for wanting to root a mobile phone may include, as previously mentioned, the ability to install homebrew applications as well as having the knowledge that the user is in full control of their phone.
What about the HTC Hero? Can that be rooted as well?
One of the phones that can handle being rooted is the HTC Hero. Instructions on how to root this particular phone are finally, at long last, available for all HTF Hero users to take and follow. Keep in mind, however, it is highly recommended to carefully consider whether or not it is worth the risk to damaging the phone. If not done correctly, consequences may occur, such as damage to the phone.
How to Root the HTC Hero
- Firstly, download the following file as located here. Proceed to download another file from here.
- Install it to the HTC device in question. To do this, connect it to the computer using a USB cable. Mount the device's SD card by way of the HTC Alerts Menu. Proceed to install using the drive that Windows has just detected.
- Extract the two downloaded zip files into separate folders.
- Head to the Android's SDK folder and proceed to open the tools folder.
- Two files should have been inside the boot image zip, or 1.b. Copy this into the tools folder. They should be named “boot.img.insecure” and “boot.img”
- Shutdown the phone.
- Turn the phone back on while holding the back key. This will boot the fastboot screen, indicated by a white screen and three androids at the bottom.
- Reconnect the phone via USB if it was disconnected.
- Start, Run, cmd.exe on Windows. Change the directory to the tools directory that was created earlier.
- Run fastboot.exe boot boot.img.insecure while in the tools directory.
- The output should indicate it is downloading and booting.
The device should now begin with root access. In order to access this, open HTC Sync by way of the phone's alerts menu. Ignore the pop up message in Windows. Open cmd again and type adb.exe shell. The output should be a number sign.
When the pound sign appears, run the following command: mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system , which will mount the phone's file system in the proper RW mode. Add the su command to the phone and run the following commands in shell, which is the pound sign, and make sure to run all commands separately.
- cat /system/bin/sh > /system/bin/su
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
- reboot
This will reboot the phone, loading its stock ROM. Enjoy.
Links are dead
All links are not working …. Please help to fix it
Neither Link works
Nether link works
2nd link not repaired :(
2nd link duznt work, fix it please
Hi,
It says that this link no longer exists King
Can you help any further?
Thanks in advance
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MS troll :) who Bings?
heres a way to only root your phone not downlode a custom room hers the link to the apk. yes its a app
Change the link to use /android-sdk_r12-windows.zip and it should work…. the r06 is simply out of date.
The first link in step does not work for me says
“Document 404”
The rest is pretty simple except I cannot get past step due to the above reason
The links is not working for me
please tell me,how can i toot
a htc smart???
Have the same issue as corbindallas above….can’t get past downloading boot.img….
Any ideas?
Thanks
ahh I tried this before and was sucessfull (T-Mobiles My touch 3G and some other Android phones). Right now I’m trying to do the same with a Hero. the problem is that is first link appears to be broken or missing. This is what appears to my screen:
404. That’s an error.
The requested URL /android/android-sdk_r06-windows.zip was not found on this server. That’s all we know.
and I can’t continue. BTW, the other link is fine, I just need the 1st link fixed.
How long should step 11 take? When I have my phone in HBOOT mode the “fastboot.exe boot boot.img.insecure” command starts, but never gets past “downloading boot.img”; in Fastboot (VOL UP from HBOOT mode), the command gives an instant failure. If I switch to fastboot from HBOOT while the command is running, the process fails “status read failed (too many links)” followed by the length of time it was running (longest I’ve allowed was 1160.828s)
My phone was flashed from cellular south to cricket; will this still work?
I took my computer apart all ricked out. Any other way? GOT RICKI?
I have the same problem as ‘ryan’ :
“downloading ‘boot.img’ …FAILED (remote: not allow)”
anyone know why? everything else up until that point works!
Press the volume up key and retry downloading boot.img.insecure
These are horrible instructions, please revise.
“downloading ‘boot.img’… FAILED {remote: not allow)”
anyone know what that means?
Does anyone know if rooting is only way to recieve froyo for HTC hero
Hey there! I’ve tried this method, but can’t get past the second step. When I connect and mount my HTC Hero though usb, my pc automatically recognises it as an HTC Android Phone USB Device. How can I solve this????
The reason that the fastboot won’t work is because it’s actually the bottom volume button instead of the back button. So it’s holding the volume down button and the power button, at least on Sprint HTC Heros.
aperently theres so many issuse im not gonna mess with it ill find a diffrent way to root it
How do I back up my phone before playing with rooting my phone?? I’m a total newb to smart phones… just want my htc hero to run well and gain the ability to move mp3s and pics and vids to the desktop and be able to open them with applications of my choosing… and to make the battery life longer i don’t need all the fancy features
Yeah I’m having that problem with the fastboot screen too…
Your a legend… ;)
i cant boot the fastboot screen for some reason. its step 7 above. any idea why?
Does this work for Alltel CDMA?
This will wipe your current apps correct? I have a authenticator I will need to write a serial number down from or I would be perm locked out from my program. Problem is I’m having major lag problems and random issues with 2.1 I was hoping to root my Hero and go up to 2.2 to get some of the new features as well.
I fixed the link to the boot image and it should work now :)
Google search the filename
the second link is broken and can not be downloaded