By Sooner or later it was bound to happen. The hottest Android handset on the planet had to have the hottest legion of Android developers following its every move, prying and prodding at its inner core until they could do what oh so many people hoped – root tha dang thing!
Here are the instructions as seen on AllDroid but remember – I’m not suggesting you download anything or try anything and if you do, you assume all the risks yourself:
md5sum of the boot partition:
3e49d99b320cf5c20bedf09343c1155c /dev/mtd/mtd2Download the zip file (see downloads in posts below)
Rename to “update.zip” and copy to the sdcardPower off the DROID and power back on while holding the X key
When you see a “/!\” symbol, press both vol+ and camera
Use the onscreen menu to install update.zipOnce installed you will be able to run “su” from your adb shell.
URL: http://rapidshare.com/files/318204448/d … t.zip.html (Down now?)
URL2: http://www.4shared.com/file/168496608/8 … -root.html (thanks, blunden)
URL3: http://www.mediafire.com/?ydaqjmditjh (thanks, blunden)
URL4: http://www.multiupload.com/XYPZLK4K22
Phandroid friend Evan Charlton let us know that Zinx should get credit for finding the exploit and [mbm] helped test the goods – as far as who found the exploit to make it possible, whoever did it isn’t taking credit.
This would be released when I have several papers to write, and finals to study for tonight! so upset :'(
This is awesome progress but will this method continue to work with the 2.0.1 patch that is being released or will we have to use another method?
Woohoo! Semi-good news for the *nix heads, Not so good news for the average end user. I wouldn’t even bother following any of the instructions anywhere, It will do you no good. Let the people with expendable phones/income do the dirty work while you sit patiently knowing that SOMEONE will soon be working on a nice ROM for the DROID.
Root if you break it take it bake, say “I dont know what happened I was on a phone call”
Relevance is key, and the whole purpose of root is for those with the knowledge to move forward to extend to those that just want the cool roms/features that come with it. Don’t put that risk on a phone like the DROID.
you can also now update to 2.0.1 even if you didn’t receive the notification… http://alldroid.org/viewtopic.php?f=210&t=568
Shows you how to install it… also you can still install the root update “patch” afterwards…
I admit I have no idea what this means. Someone clarify what this means and how this is good/bad?
*claps*
Well done.
Can someone explain to a noob what the benefit of rooting an Android device is? I get jail-breaking an iPhone since Apple acts so much like a gatekeeper for that device, but I thought Android was much more open?
As you can probably guess, I’m new to the Droid and the Android OS. What kinds of cool things can you do with a rooted android device that you couldn’t otherwise do? Does it let you get into the file system and mess around, or something?
@brett it opens this open source OS even further, lets you do a bunch of stuff your not suppose to, and lets you install custom roms.
I don’t have a android phone(yet) but rooting is a good thing.
@brett lewis Having owned 3 G1’s, a Motorola DROID and DROID Eris, Let me tell you that rooting is the best thing to take your device to it’s limits. I was upset when XDA had a whole thing on only running HTC devices, but clearly that is not an issue. When you’re able to gain root to a device, You can control every aspect of your devices purpose. To dumb it down into easily understandable terms, Say you have windows vista as a sub account on your moms computer, You can’t modify nearly anything without the permission of “Administrator”. Having a Stock DROID is like running a sub account with limited (but not as terrible as windows) options. Rooting opens up the Administrator account to you.
That’s great, but the news just came out that Android 2.0.1 is being pushed to Verizon DROID’s as we speak. So is this root update 2.0.0? Additionally, will this root update prevent the Verizon OTA update to work?
Root only works with ADB and not wi-fi tether right now. At this point a modified recovery rom and custom android rom with iptables support will need to be created to fully unleash the potential of the Droid.
One small step for droid, one, giant leap for Droidkind!
Ted: This method works with both 2.0.0 and the 2.0.1 update. All it allows you to do is su when your connected via adb. For most users, this isn’t going to help them very much. However, we should see more hacks coming out very soon =)
@brett “I admit I have no idea what this means.”
If you don’t know what root means, then for the sake of your phone, DO NOT follow those instructions. Root level access allows you to do things which can completely break your phone. If you are a hacker, and willing to risk breaking things, then this is great news.
It’s speculation currently concerning the whole OTA being screwed, But I’d assume so. The update that you apply to the phone just grants root access. What you have to do is manually (or wait for the OTA) install 2.0.1, THAN install the root update and you will have a rooted 2.0.1. If you apply it as is, You will have a rooted 2.0.0.
It’s just like Cyanogen’s on the G1..In order to get all the “With Google” shit because they C&D’d him, You have to first install 1.6, Than install his over it.
@rob wow, what are you doing with so many android phones =S
aside from that, I hope that this means that the milestone can be rooted easily as well.
@Rob “Say you have windows vista as a sub account on your moms computer, You can’t modify nearly anything without the permission of “Administrator”.”
Actually, neither you nor your mom should be running Windows as administrator. There is a reason normal users aren’t given root access: it’s called separation of user privileges, and it’s one of the reasons Linux is more secure than Windows.
That said, I’ll probably root my Droid at some point in the future. It’s just that we shouldn’t be encouraging people who don’t even understand what root is to do so…
Interesting factoid: in Australia ‘root’ means ‘to have sex intercourse with’..
Some1 just fucked his droid
@some1
sex intercourse? as opposed to some other form of intercourse?
:)
“Interesting factoid: in Australia ‘root’ means ‘to have sex intercourse with’..”
Hmmm… I love my Droid, I mean I *really* LOVE MY DRIOD, but it hasn’t gone that far…
..at least not yet, there is that pr0n app:
https://phandroid.com/2009/11/27/android-porn-market-from-mikandi/
@D-man First of all, Lol. It’s been a long time since I have lived with my mom, That said, I was moreso referring to a user account with limited privelages that requires administrator permissions. When someone responds with not even knowing what root is, I’m not going to explain the purpose as I use it daily on slackware or debian, Rather put it in terms someone who has no idea what root is can understand.
@Keni 1 of the G1’s was my wife’s, The other 2 were mine. 1 was rooted and used at home for whatever and the other was for work. I have since sold 2 of them and MY 2 toys are DROID and DROID Eris, My wife still has her G1 until she transitions to the Eris because I will never claim an android phone without a hardware keyboard.
So I’ve seen a lot of people saying that even though we have root now we still need a custom rom for tethering. Their reason behind this is that the kernel does not have iptables support. This may not be the case. If the droid kernel has module loading support(which it probably does since I bet their using proprietary modules) all that has to be done is to compile the iptables modules which are ABI compliant to the droids kernel. The way to do that is to compile against the source and config the Droid kernel has. This shouldn’t be a problem because the Linux kernel is GPL, they have to give us the source. The question is has motorola released the source yet?
Did anyone test this with the European Version (Milestone)? I’ll get mine today and would like to know if this will also work for the Milestone.
@andrew – yes – there is social intercourse as well as sexual so there are 2 types of intercourse
@Zonnked – you can only hold out for so long.. once they start coming out with more comfortable form factors you’ll be rooting your Android phone like crazy
Wireless tether, let’s make it work – I’m looking for testers! Please visit: http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/issues/detail?id=189#c6
Am rather new to the android OS and don’t understand fully the advantages of rooting an android device. But as I get the hang of it do you guys think it would be possible to install and run apps from the SD card? That would be a big plus wouldn’t it??
Omfg I love you guys.
@sjm
In general, companies don’t like putting apps on SD cards because you can take the app off the phone and give it to other people. DRM is weak when it comes to Android, so they just disable it usually. It takes a custom rom to enable a feature like that. App2SD is traditionally not available because it requires hooks into the *nix kernel and driver support of the SD as a boot device. Once guys like Cyanogen get to play with the kernel source and porting over their apps, you’ll see App2SD become more common.
Correction:
Not SD as a boot device, as a general storage partition, sorry.
Gotta luv it the root access was done already. Now we can at least remove some of the stock apps that are useless to us which is a start at least. Hats off to the folks who figured it out and posted the details
I have been looking everywhere for exact instuctions on how to root my DROID. Can someone please help me out? I have 2.0.1 and want to know from start to finish how to root and what to do from there. I would really appreciate it, thanks
http://gizmodo.com/5455452/how-to-hack-multitouch-onto-your-motorola-droid