Noob's first rooting experience, for fellow Moto Droid noobs

[naccout]

I have benefited greatly from this site and thought I would offer the little I can to those who are still debating whether or not to root.

I've owned the Moto Droid for about 8 months, and stared at these forums drooling over the root goodies and themes. Still uncomfortable about rooting, I couldn't muster the courage to mess with the phone in ways I'd never done before.

When the original Froyo ROM for non-rooted users released, there was no way I wasn't going to get that. Was the best decision I had made so far. Then, reading around in the themes section I found that I was one file away from rooting my phone. !? I was told to download http://www.mydroidfiles.com/downloads/update.zip


Took me about 30 minutes total (including adding the Froyo Rom), and without 1 snag, I was rooted. A lot easier than I had originally thought!

From there you can update to one of the newer builds of 2.2 (Froyo.)

After you have a version of 2.2 you like...

Overclock kernels: Android 2.2 Kernels Released – Fixes WiFi | Droid Life: A Motorola Droid Blog

Downloaded SetCPU from market, adjusted settings, and then I was overclocked.

I then downloaded a Froyo theme (I chose Blue Energy and love it.)

Added Adobe Flash (not necessary but nice to have.)

Added the new basebands to not feel left out (not necessary) at http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/49648-new-baseband-too.html

Point being, root was much less painful than I thought, and now after having root access for a few days, I have what feels to be a whole new device. With 2.2, the overclocked kernel, and LauncherPRO (ADW is snappy too) the Droid functions as I always wanted. Seamless, snappy, and sexy!! And after playing around a bit, I am more comfortable with toying with my phone.

If I was ever overloaded with information on these forums because of multiple threads or I referred to the Droid Life blog for simple instructions and necessary links. (Droid Life: A Motorola Droid Blog)

I haven't made any mistakes rooting, or installing files. Thank you to the people on this forum and the great Android community!

Good luck fellow noobs

 

[Taegost]

I'm glad to hear you had such a good experience... I LOVE 2.2... I really liked Cyanogenmod, but I didn't even hesitate when I saw the thread pop up... I've been *dying* to test out whether it really is faster, and to have Flash...
My co-workers are all envious of my phone, and one of them got an Incredible... My Droid runs circles around it!

 

[christim]

It is nice to see the 30 minute rooting messages. Not everyone is lucky enough to have 8 spare hours to root their phone.

Seriously though, for every horror story you see where someone gets stuck things go very smooth for far more folks. It is good to know before hand though that if you do get stuck it can take a while to get unstuck.

And unstuck... folks do get. Eventually.

 

[FootballRef]

Naccout -

You sound like you was in the same boat that I am in. I would like to see a rooted phone to see how it works. I am curious about rooting.

How hard is it to get back to stock if I don't like it?
What about OS updates on a rooted phone?
I would love to overclock and have Froyo...but still just a little skeptical of rooting.

 

[foggymtn88]

Also a moto droid owner. I just rooted and went to froyo yesterday with the help of a friend who has a nexus one. It took about 4 hours, but we ate lunch etc during the process.

I was hesitant, and definitely nervous about the possibility of bricking, but now its hard to see why I was worried at all. If you follow the instructions on this forum carefully, take your time, and dont do anything you dont understand without posting and waiting for response first, theres little to no risk.

The reward is well worth it, im overclocked with froyo. Flash is great, and the hulu player has made a few of my co-worker droid owners jealous x)
The awesomeness of having complete control cant be beat.

1. there are no ots updates once rooted but you dont need them because you have access via this forum and clockwork rom manager to info on all the latest mods and roms available. essentially you have access to ota updates before they are available. The only catch is having to apply manually, and once youve rooted its a cake walk.
2. You cant reset it back to stock in the sense that your warranty is honorable, however you can set it back to 1.1. I can assure you though, once you go rooted froyo you wont want to go back.

 

[RW-1]

I did it as well. The secret here is that the later Froyo builds are already rooted. Works been done for you.

Wi fi tethering, baseband upgrades, and shortly I'll turn to flash and begin oc'ing slightly (which will need a new. Kernel...)

I'm a happy camper!

 

[naccout]

Naccout -

You sound like you was in the same boat that I am in. I would like to see a rooted phone to see how it works. I am curious about rooting.

How hard is it to get back to stock if I don't like it?
What about OS updates on a rooted phone?
I would love to overclock and have Froyo...but still just a little skeptical of rooting.

I haven't gone back to stock yet but there are tutorials and once you learn to tinker around it shouldn't be hard.

Like poster above me said, you don't get the over the air OS updates from Verizon but when they come out you basically revert to stock then re-root (if you want to go back to root.)

Sounds like a pain in the arse but it's not bad, you learn and get quicker, and it's worth it

 

[Garemlin]

So this is the cheaters way so to speak. Avoiding all of the dirty work??? So to get this straight after you install that file you are rooted?? Then you install the 2.2 ROM??? Can you use any theme??? This late in the game all the info and tutorials out there are overwhelming. I have considered rooting but with all of the different things going on it is really hard to figure out where exactly to start. And once you get started where do you go from there. I don't really want to tinker. Just want to add a theme and maybe overclock and be done with it.

 

[Fault]

July 5th, I will get my droid. Im ecstatic about it because of these forums