The Unrootable Droid - PLEASE HELP ME!

[christim]

You have a Mac, and therefore you found that RDKamakazie's windows based script wouldn't work. And that said, christim's thread will not work for you either,

Except the files needed in the thread I recommended: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/re...08-multiple-phones-root-them-unroot-them.html do not require windows. You can do it all from your phone by visiting that thread with your phone's browser.

• You download a zip file with 4 files onto the phone
• use Astro to unzip the file
• use Terminal Emulator to then use the rage in the cage exploit,
• and then root your phone by using terminal emulator to put su and superuser.apk into place.

 

[christim]

You're getting the same message I got on my first attempt to install a custom rom... My mistake was renaming it to Update.zip..... I just renamed it to Update without the .zip (file extension was there just hidden) and it has never failed since... Some OS show up as update.zip.zip....
Hope it helpsdancedroid

One of my pet peeves, and has been for years....why MS hides known file extensions. Fix it here:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...nfigure-windows-not-hide-file-extensions.html

 

[leutbneot]

Quick question: I'm working straight off the guide here, using Step 2 Option A (rooting without a computer - for us Mac users). I've completed the first little set of stuff - downloading all the programs and zip files to the phone, using Astro to extract the files in rageagainstthecage to the download directory on my sdcard, and now I'm pumped. I feel ready. I fire up Android Terminal Emulator. Ahhh, that blue background and little white "$" is so comforting. Incidentally, the first thing Terminal Emulator tells me is "export PATH=/data/local/bin:$PATH", which I guess is the default command sent to the shell when it opens for this Terminal. I don't really know enough UNIX to know whether I should change it, so I leave it alone.

I hit the first command:
$ $ cd /tmp
cd: can't cd to /tmp

OK, let's see what's going on here. Where am I, anyway?

$ ls
<a bunch of stuff>
cache
sdcard
acct
<a bunch more stuff>

Ahhhhh! I'm not in the sdcard yet. Let's go there.

$ cd sdcard
$ ls
<a bunch of stuff, including my tmp directory>

THERE we go. Now this will work, right? I'm sure it was just an oversight on the part of the author of the guide. In the very... first... step. Riiiiight. Not encouraging, but let's go!

$ cd /tmp
cd: can't cd to /tmp

Incidentally, I don't understand why I need the / before the tmp in this command. If I just want to change to the tmp directory, wouldn't cd tmp work? Let's try:

$ cd tmp
$ ls
$

OK, I'm in /sdcard/tmp now, which is apparently empty. Next, according to the guide, I want to "copy the file to the tmp directory, change its permissions. run it, and wait." Here we go:

$ cp /sdcard/download/rage*.bin /sdcard/tmp
cp: permission denied

Uhhhhh... OK, here's where I'm lost. The author of the guide never mentioned that I would need any sort of admin privileges added to my account in Terminal. Why don't I have them? How do I get them? Obviously, under normal circumstances I would use su, but IT'S NOT INSTALLED YET. I tried it, just for fun, didn't work (su: permission denied)

Any help?

 

[BlackHoleSlam]

I am now going to continue watching this until open obtains root I did 9/25/10 and I am soon happy wit my Droid I kinda of had same problem with not being able to root my droid try taking out mem card and boot up power down and place memcard back in n see if you can then update.zip through that

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[BlackHoleSlam]

Okay I know how to help with terminal problems look for the thread changing Eri.XML and look on the second page and the person expalins if you can't use the normal method

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

 

[leutbneot]

Okay I know how to help with terminal problems look for the thread changing Eri.XML and look on the second page and the person expalins if you can't use the normal method

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Are you talking about the thread where everyone's discussing using Root Explorer? I don't have Root Explorer and don't want to spend $5.00 to set permissions on this. Why can't I do this when everyone else can? What's the problem here? Why is my setup different than everyone else's?

The point is not that I could (maybe) fix the permissions if I downloaded another app from the Market, the point is that there is a guide, written for everyone to use, and it seems to work fine for everyone except ME. What is wrong with my setup that's causing all these problems? That's my real question. To be honest, I'd rather find out what the real problem was, and find out it was totally unfixable and I needed a new phone, than fix the problem accidentally and get root access without knowing what was causing problems this whole time.

Anyone? Any help with that UNIX I posted above? I tried making a new directory on my sdcard in Astro called rage, and I copied the rageagainstthecage file into it and re-extracted it so I'd have a brand-new, empty directory to work out of, because my download directory is full of other crap I've downloaded and I thought maybe something in there was messing around with something in rage. Still nothing. I don't have permission to copy ANYTHING, ANYWHERE according to Android Terminal Emulator. I... Want... To... Die!!!

This was fun earlier today when I realized that I had a few other smart people that were trying to help me, but I'm close to losing all hope. I have spent way more time on this than, if I'm being honest with myself, I should have let myself. I'm going to give this another day or two and if nobody on here can think of anything that works (all your ideas so far have been great, by the way, and I wanted to thank you all for jumping in to my aid, it's just that my phone happens to be an angry, vindictive little troll that manages to thwart everyone), I'm giving up the ghost. I'll take the phone back and get something else so I'm not tempted by the siren song of hacking my Droid during every waking hour.

Bummmmmmer.

 

[furbearingmammal]

How dedicated to getting root are you? Are you willing to SBF your phone back to an earlier Android version? If so, all you'd need is a friend with a PC and the patience to let you muck about for 30 minutes or so.

 

[leutbneot]

How dedicated to getting root are you? Are you willing to SBF your phone back to an earlier Android version? If so, all you'd need is a friend with a PC and the patience to let you muck about for 30 minutes or so.

I'd be willing to consider it, I guess. My main problem would actually be locating someone with a PC at their home (we all have work PCs, but with severely limited / non-Admin access)... most of my friends are musicians and thus Mac users.

Assuming I found a PC, how would I do this, exactly? A quick step-by-step or a link to such a guide would be extremely helpful in determining if it's something I'm up for or not at this point. Could you either reply with a quick guide or a link? I'd really appreciate it.

I'm assuming that nobody else has any clues why I'm being shut out by my Droid at every corner, do they? I've really managed to stump the Rescue Squad? That's sort of an accomplishment in its own right, I guess.

Thanks for the help, everyone. I really do appreciate it, even if my evil phone wouldn't let us have our moment of happiness.

 

[furbearingmammal]

I'm sure it's something tiny/small we're overlooking or something MAJOR we've never even HEARD OF! Just out of curiosity, when you boot into recovery, what does the recover image look like? Small green android-dude? Or just a triangle with an ! in the middle?

If it comes to it, here's the guide to flashing SBF files correctly.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-labs/73579-using-rsd-lite-flash-sbf-file-correctly.html

A video on flashing SBF files can be found here -- just substitute a complete SBF file for the SPRecovery one.

Video: Flashing SPRecovery SBF to Stock 2.1 - Droid Life: A Droid Community Blog

The video is slightly out of date, but it's the only one I'm aware of at the moment.

I'd recommend you use the 2.0.1 SBF so you can root with any method of your choice -- then flashing a custom ROM or the rooted 22D ROM. But back up your important stuff and go into the privacy section and turn on Sync and let Google see all your stuff so you can get it back.

 

[leutbneot]

All right!

After re-installing a new version of Windows into VM Fusion, fully wiping my Droid, wiping ALL nonessential data off my SD card, pulling and reinserting the card, and reloading the Windows drivers for the Droid, I tried the adw method one... more ... time ... and, lo and behold, it worked! I can't believe it, but I'm finally rooted! All it took was completely removing every single thing I ever had and starting from scratch on an operating system that I'm running through an emulator that is slowly counting down the time I have left, like some medieval torture device: "Root the Droid in the next 5 days, or the girl dies!"

Anyway, thanks for all your help, everyone! Any suggestions on what I should do now? I saved my stock, rooted Froyo ROM with ROM Manager and downloaded 0.5 Bugless Beast, the new LFY, and the ULV 1.0 GHz Chevy kernel. I'm so giddy!

 

[furbearingmammal]

Suggestions? Ditch ROM Manager so you don't risk having another major issue with your recovery image. After all the work you put into this I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to have to do anything else huge just to keep your phone running how you want it!

After that, try some ROMs, install SetCPU, install the tethering apps just in case you EVER have to use them, and look in on some themes.

Oh, and, CONGRATULATIONS! dancedroid:icon_ banana::icon_ peace::beer2::yahoo::i-m_so_happy:

 

[Corinacakes]

I can't believe it, but I'm finally rooted!

I'm so happy for you!!!! :woot:

I apologize I recommended DMupdater. I rooted my droid with it, I rooted my sister's droid with it, I've seen hundreds of ppl root with it (albeit this was a long time ago)...I had no idea they removed the option to root from the app and I can't understand why they would!?

I also want to apologize if you feel I hijacked your thread. I sat and waited for you forever and was happy to see a lot of other ppl waiting with me. We had fun + you're rooted = it's all good. Again, CONGRATS! :icon_ banana:

EDIT: After a complaint about the hijack, :icon_eek: all unrelated posts have been edited/deleted.

 

[christim]

I hit the first command:
$ $ cd /tmp
cd: can't cd to /tmp

I'm sure it was just an oversight on the part of the author of the guide. In the very... first... step. Riiiiight. Not encouraging, but let's go!
How do I get them? Obviously, under normal circumstances I would use su, but IT'S NOT INSTALLED YET.

The author is feeling pretty stupid right now. As soon as I read that you couldn't switch to /tmp I knew exactly what the problem was without reading the rest of your post, but you figured it out too. You need to be rooted to get rooted.:icon_eek:

I apologize and have put a disclaimer into the instructions while I mull this over. By the end of the day I may just have to remove that entire section. Glad to see you finally did get rooted and sorry for the false hope it could be done without a computer.

edit:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...h-simpler-guide-rooting-no-pc-required-8.html This thread has similar steps. They have debugging turned on but at this early hour I'm not sure how they did some of the commands without having root access. I think I need to return my phone to stock and play with this.

 

[jstafford1]

Good job everyone.....there are no unrootable Droids!!! Hahahahaha

 

[teddyearp]

Sweet! But who knows what the original error was? The shadow? And christim, I forgot the non-pc part of your guide, but in looking at some of my stuff, I wonder if instead of "cd /tmp" a "cd /data/local/tmp" would get it? The rage*.bin, et. al. files work for all android devices (for now), but it is the locations where we put them that is specific to each phone. Your "cd /tmp" command is from the thread you linked, but it's in the Droid 2 section.