Manual rooting of DroidX after the 2.2.1 OTA

[TuxDude]

I updated OTA to 2.2.1 on my Droid X....

I had not previously tried rooting my phone - just was going through different apps and manual procedures available for rooting and besides I came to know about the 2.2.1 availability, so waited till it was available...

So now I followed the manual instructions found all over the internet:

I'm just doing a copy-paste of the same:

- Open command prompt
- cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
- adb devices (to verify the connection)
- adb push Superuser.apk /sdcard/Superuser.apk
- adb push su /sdcard/su
- adb push busybox /sdcard/busybox
- adb push rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin /data/local/tmp/rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
- adb shell
- cd data/local/tmp
- chmod 0755 rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin

- ./rageagainstthecage-arm5.bin
- let the process run until it 'kicks' you out (may take a minute or two) to C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
- cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools
- adb kill-server
- adb devices (to verify the connection)
- adb shell (you should now have a # prompt, if not return to ./rage step above)

- mount -o rw,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- cp /sdcard/Superuser.apk /system/app/Superuser.apk
- cp /sdcard/su /system/bin/su
- cp /sdcard/busybox /system/bin/busybox
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
- chmod 4755 /system/bin/busybox
- mount -o ro,remount -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk1p21 /system
- exit
- exit

I tried these steps from a linux box. I'm able to push the required files onto the sdcard as well as the tmp directory. I'm also able to chmod the binary to make it executable. Also the application successfully kicks me out of the adb shell.

But adb is not able to identify my device from then on even after restarting the adb daemon lot of times. If I reboot the phone, adb is able to discover the device again but the exploit becomes unusable after the reboot.

Does any one else face the same issue ? Any other suggestions on what I might be missing ?

I even tried keeping my USB mode in both Phone Mode as well as Charge-only mode.

I know there are standalone and one-click apps available out there which does the rooting, but I prefer to know what is going on just to make sure I can cleanly unroot the phone if required in the future.

Thanks.

 

[thedevil'sadvocate]

I updated OTA to 2.2.1 on my Droid X....

I had not previously tried rooting my phone - just was going through different apps and manual procedures available for rooting and besides I came to know about the 2.2.1 availability, so waited till it was available...

I tried these steps from a linux box. I'm able to push the required files onto the sdcard as well as the tmp directory. I'm also able to chmod the binary to make it executable. Also the application successfully kicks me out of the adb shell.

But adb is not able to identify my device from then on even after restarting the adb daemon lot of times. If I reboot the phone, adb is able to discover the device again but the exploit becomes unusable after the reboot.

Does any one else face the same issue ? Any other suggestions on what I might be missing ?

I even tried keeping my USB mode in both Phone Mode as well as Charge-only mode.

I know there are standalone and one-click apps available out there which does the rooting, but I prefer to know what is going on just to make sure I can cleanly unroot the phone if required in the future.

Thanks.

Same here. Been hammering on this SOB for 3 hours now. There's no new ADB in the Android SDK. I've heard that it can be done in Terminal Emulator but it didn't work, and I'm all about a terminal (I run Arch on my workstation) so that's not the problem.

And to think I did an SBF flash just to get this crap to work. I didn't need 2.2.1 that bad:angry:

 

[TuxDude]

My guess is that the adb daemon exploit they were using in 2.2 might have got fixed in 2.2.1....

Few said doing the same directly from the phone worked - may be it is because no adb is required especially in identifying the device portion at least and the terminal emulator app within the phone works for performing the subsequent steps.... May be one other reason z4root run directly from the phone works too.... Any thoughts ?

 

[thedevil'sadvocate]

My guess is that the adb daemon exploit they were using in 2.2 might have got fixed in 2.2.1....

Few said doing the same directly from the phone worked - may be it is because no adb is required especially in identifying the device portion at least and the terminal emulator app within the phone works for performing the subsequent steps.... May be one other reason z4root run directly from the phone works too.... Any thoughts ?

Tried running rage...-arm5 in the phone's terminal and it complained about not finding ADB. Tried DoRoot, same problem (doesn't reconnect the phone after the ADB server starts). Where can z4root be found? Went looking for a linkie as it appears to not be in the Market.

EDIT: Found z4, trying it now.

 

[TuxDude]

My guess is that the adb daemon exploit they were using in 2.2 might have got fixed in 2.2.1....

Few said doing the same directly from the phone worked - may be it is because no adb is required especially in identifying the device portion at least and the terminal emulator app within the phone works for performing the subsequent steps.... May be one other reason z4root run directly from the phone works too.... Any thoughts ?

Tried running rage...-arm5 in the phone's terminal and it complained about not finding ADB. Tried DoRoot, same problem (doesn't reconnect the phone after the ADB server starts). Where can z4root be found? Went looking for a linkie as it appears to not be in the Market.

The complaint about ADB not found can be ignored is what I read.... Lemme try the steps on mine and update my findings....

Check out the link on this page for z4root:
hxxp://www.droid-life.com/2010/12/09/z4root-will-root-the-droid-x-2-3-340-update/

If the manual method works good for me otherwise I'm gonna stay unrooted for now :|

 

[thedevil'sadvocate]

SCORE!!

z4root works.

 

[TuxDude]

Good that you have z4root working....

I too got the adb not running error - after enabling the USB debugging option under Settings this went off...

But no luck with the Terminal emulator - I kept getting the same $ prompt and no # prompt

When I do a ps - I see many instances of the RATC.bin running and my phone was getting slower and slower - I had to reboot after some point....

 

[thedevil'sadvocate]

Good that you have z4root working....

I too got the adb not running error - after enabling the USB debugging option under Settings this went off...

But no luck with the Terminal emulator - I kept getting the same $ prompt and no # prompt

When I do a ps - I see many instances of the RATC.bin running and my phone was getting slower and slower - I had to reboot after some point....

I kept USB debugging going because where I read the details for doing it that way, they said as much. Everything else--including z4root, even though it's not connected via USB to anything--needs it on so I just left it. And yes, that was what happened when I did it on the terminal.

I have to admit though...when I saw there was a way to do it in term, my first thought was "no way, it can't be that easy!":blink:

Thanks for posting the non-link, I had just gone to that site when you posted too. Now, back to finishing my web server...until Gingerbread drops and we get to do it all again.

 

[TuxDude]

On second try, I got my DroidX rooted finally using the manual terminal emulator method from the phone directly without z4root

I doubt they're gonna keep this exploit open in the Gingerbread too....