Android Workz

I found this tutorial on a blog called Droid Life and I thought I would repost it here since he has used download services that won’t allow you to download all of the files if you are a free user. Since I have my own dedicated server, I can host the files here so you don’t have to deal with that. Additionally, I want to go through the steps that I took to root my phone and what applications and mods I am using. I want to thank Droid Life for the video tutorials that they have created… it made this process very painless.

First, we should talk about why you might want to root your phone and weigh those against the risks.

I think the main reason that anyone would want to root their phone is to be able to use the additional features that rooting provides. The number one reason I chose to root my Motorola Droid was to enable wifi tethering which essentially turns my Motoroal Droid into a wifi hotspot that uses the 3G internet connection. Some apps will even allow tethering through bluetooth. Secondly, I wanted to be able to make my phone look cool. Here are some shots of my phone taken with an application called ShootMe. I am running a Mod called CyanogenMod v5.0.7.1 with the Blue Energy Theme v1.0.3, Beautiful Widgets and setCPU to allow for overclocking the phone. I will go into detail about how to flash your phone with these mods and provide links to the applications in later posts.

The first thing you should think about before you root for phone is whether or not you want to take the risk. You will most definitely void your warranty while your phone is rooted and you will not be able to upgrade your phone with provider updates while the phone is rooted (such as the upcoming Froyo 2.2 update). However, the mod community tends to update their roms to whatever version of Android is the newest… so I am certain that all of the features of Froyo 2.2 will be available. Another thing to consider is that the rooting process will completely wipe your phone… so you will have to backup all of your applications and contacts before you attempt to root your phone. To do the application backup you can install Astro File Manager click the menu button >> select Tools >> Backup and backup your applications to the SD card. You can later install Astro File Manager again when the rooting process is complete and use it to reinstall your applications. If you are using Gmail as the primary account on your phone and syncing your contacts, you won’t have to backup your contacts. When you reactivate your phone after completing the rooting process you can just sync Gmail again and it will install your contacts. If you are not using Gmail you can download Lookout Mobile Security and use it to backup your contacts, pictures and calls. I found that it sometimes didn’t work very well for pictures but you can get those from your phone via USB. NOTE: I did encounter a problem with one of my paid applications. I had purchased Dungeon Hunter and when I reinstalled it from the backup it told me that it was an invalid copy… so I had to purchase the application again. I suspect that if I had purchased the application through an account on the site that I would have been able to reinstall it… but I had purchased it from my phone with no account.

NOTE: The following process is risky and may result in your phone being “bricked”… which means that it will be gone and useless if anything goes wrong. I am NOT responsible for any damage that you cause to your phone by attempting to root your phone. You have been warned! Secondly, This process is only for the Motorola Droid (not Motorola Milestone) running the stock 2.1 ESE81 from the manufacturer and only details the steps for a PC user running Windows.

Ok… let’s get to it.

Step 1:
The first step to root your phone is to make sure that you have the USB drivers installed. If you can connect your phone to your PC and access the SD Card then you have the driver installed. Otherwise, download the correct Motorola USB drivers and install to your PC [32-bit] [64-bit] OR download and install the Motorola Media Link and it will install the correct driver (NOTE: I was prompted to upgrade my driver after I installed Motorola Media Link. After install you should see a little icon with an M on it and if you hold your mouse over it you should see “MotoConnect”. If you right click on that icon it has an option to check for device driver updates.) If you don’t know how to do that… I suggest you don’t attempt to root your phone.

Step 2:

• Create a folder on your hard drive called root
• Download these files to that folder RSD Lite | SP Recovery | ESE81 Update
• Extract RSD Lite and SP Recovery (if you don’t know how to extract a zip… stop now… do not continue)
• You should now have RSDLite4.6.msi and SPRecovery_ESE81.sbf in that folder
• Install RSD Lite
• Rename ESE81_update.zip to update.zip (make sure that it’s not named update.zip.zip) – We will use this later

• Connect your phone to a USB and your PC and turn it off.
• Open RSD Lite (run as administrator – Go to Start >> Run then paste C:\Program Files\Motorola\RSD Lite\SDL.exe into the run box and hit enter).
• Slide open your keyboard, hold up on the d-pad, then the power button for 2-3 seconds and release.
• You should now see a black screen that says BootLoader at then top
• Go RSD Lite on your PC
• Click the … next to the filename box and browse to where you saved the SPRecover_ESE81.sbf file.
• Double click and open the file.
• Click “start” and allow the SPRecovery SBF to flash. This should not take long.
• Allow for your phone to reboot and for RSD Lite to show that you are 100% and completed.
• Disconnect your phone and close RSD Lite. You now have SPRecovery installed on your Droid.
• Proceed to STEP 3.

Step 3:
NOTE: Make sure that you have backed up whatever you need backed up before you continue…

• Place the update.zip on the root of your sdcard… not in a folder.
• Reboot into recovery mode (hold the power and “x” button at the same time).
• Using the volume up/down switch highlight “Wipe data/factory reset” and select with the camera button.
• Choose “Wipe cache partition.”
• Choose “Install.”
• Choose “Allow update.zip installation.”
• Choose “Install /sdcard/update.zip (deprecated).”
• The update.zip will now be installed.
• When it finishes, select reboot.
• When your phone boots up you will have to reactivate your phone and re-add your Google accounts.
• You are now the proud owner of a rooted Motorola Droid.

Now that you have a rooted phone I highly recommend that you slide over to Droid Forums and check out the custom roms section. >>