This is the easiest way to root the LG Phoenix / Thrive

**donavan** · 06-21-2011, 11:07 AM

This walk through assumes you are starting with a stock unaltered Pheonix/Thrive (Froyo 2.2.1) or you have upgraded to Gingerbread 2.3.4 using LG's utility. I have tested both of these methods on my Phoenix but I have not tested it on the Thrive, so mileage may vary, use at your own discretion. If you brick your phone (unlikely) its your fault not mine.

Gingerbreak for Froyo (2.2.x)

1. First you will need to be able to load non-market APKs you have two options to do this.

A) Update your phone to the latest version Froyo 2.2.2 (some people have had some issues check the thread on that).
B) Go to your dialer, type 3845#*505#[Phoenix] or "3845#*506#"[Thrive] then scroll down to "Unknown Sources Test" and check the box

2. Download the APK from the following link:

(I emailed the link to myself to make it so I didnt have to browse to it)
Note* it i will yell about not knowing what to do with that kind of download but just ignore it
and download it anyways

3. Use a file explore (I used ES file Explore) to search for the newly downloaded APK I'm sure someone out there knows exactly where it downloads to but I couldn't find it easily though I can tell you its on the SDcard.

4. Run the APK

5. Turn on USB Debug mode (Settings>Application>Development)

6. Go to your Apps and run Gingerbreak

7. Click the root button

8. Let the phone do its thing (it will reboot)

9. Reboot the phone manually to make sure the root took and you didn't end up with a temp root

If all went well you have a fully rooted phone.

Here is the link to the original XDA site I recommend reading it over (at least the first post) so you understand what is going on.

If anyone notices an issue with any of the steps here please let me know and I will update them.

Also thanks go to kingv10 for pointing out the secrete code for us.

Superone click for Gingerbread 2.3.4

This method will probably work both gingerbread and froyo but I have not tested it on Froyo. The orginal post I copied from can be found at:

I recommend you read the page but for those of you who won't here is the rundown on how to root.

1. Connect your phone to the PC with USB Debugging enabled. You can enable it by going to Settings>Applications>Development and ensure that USB Debugging is checked. You will need to have installed the USB drivers for your phone. You should already have these if you upgraded to 2.3.4.

2. Download the rooting zip package and extract the contents to a folder in your PC. Let the folder be named as “root”

3. In the extracted folder, go to ADB folder and start cmd7.exe (for Windows 7 users) or cmdxp.exe (for Windows XP users). You need to run as Administrator.

4. In Command Prompt, type the following commands:

adb devices
adb shell

Now the symbol should change to “$” or “#”.
Enter the following command

echo 1 > /data/local/lge_adb.conf

5. Reboot your phone.

6. Go to the "root" folder again and run Superoneclick.exe

7. In Superone click, find the methods drop down box (right side), select Gingerbreak and then click the Root button.

8. Reboot again

Now you should be rooted

**kingv10** · 06-22-2011, 03:21 PM

Hopefully now more people will brave rooting their phones so we can get more interest in a working custom recovery/rom

**donavan** · 06-23-2011, 08:09 AM

Yeah I was shying away from rooting because I was worried about killing my phone but I figured out this was pretty much a no break solution. Obviously any program could brick a phone in theory but if I wasn't somewhat confident that it would work I wouldn't have tried it on my phone. The Gingerbreak APK seems pretty forgiving even if it doesn't root the first time. I hope everyone gets some good use out of my experience.

**mesoulz** · 06-23-2011, 03:17 PM

thank you

**LynnL** · 06-26-2011, 04:23 PM

I have a Thrive and this worked for me! I used option B in step 1. Thank you for making it super easy to root!

**foxatlarge** · 06-30-2011, 07:47 PM

I went through from step 1 to step 8. As for step 9, I just power off the LG thrive and then power on it. Then I found the superuser among applications. Does it mean I have permanent root of my thrive? If so, why can't I download busybox, droidwall (downloading seems never finish)? If not, can you give me some hints of the possible reasons?

Thanks for your attention.

**diablo1** · 07-03-2011, 04:32 AM

Has any more people rooted their lg thrive without any problems? i just got one and want to root it?

**donavan** · 07-03-2011, 09:28 AM

Originally Posted by foxatlarge

I went through from step 1 to step 8. As for step 9, I just power off the LG thrive and then power on it. Then I found the superuser among applications. Does it mean I have permanent root of my thrive? If so, why can't I download busybox, droidwall (downloading seems never finish)? If not, can you give me some hints of the possible reasons?.

This is from the Gingerbreak post over at XDA:

What the APK and exploit do is as follows:
- The APK puts the right files in the right place to run the exploit
- The APK runs the exploit
- The exploit attempts to attain root access
- If it succeeds, the exploit remounts /system as read-write and runs the installer script
- The installer script attempts to install the su binary and superuser APK, and reboots

So if you have the Superuser Icon then you should have a fully rooted phone (assuming the icon works of course) If you're unsure you can always unroot and reroot the phone. Also you can try downloading another app that requires root and if it doesn't install then you may not be rooted and you may have gotten a error somewhere in the mix.

As to why you cant install droidwall (assuming your rooted) I'm not sure I have it running on my Phoenix with no issues, I would suggest waiting a day or so and giving it another go. As to the busybox issue this is something that I have not tried but I do know there are a number of Busybox install methods/apks out there you may just have to try a few before you find one that your phone likes. I will start a new thread and we'll see if anyone out there has an answer to this.

**donavan** · 07-03-2011, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by diablo1

Has any more people rooted their lg thrive without any problems? i just got one and want to root it?

There are a number of people out there that have rooted the Thrive just fine. As a matter of fact I drew upon their experience to do this writeup. However there are a couple of methods to root the thrive though so you will see a wide range of people posting different results. I wrote up this walkthrough to help everyone get rooted the easiest way possible (that I know of at least). No promises though but so far there isn't much in the way of negative feed back. I didn't create this method or anything I just put a bunch of information all in one place so no one had to spend the hours reading junk that didn't pertain to their phone.

**foxatlarge** · 07-03-2011, 07:33 PM

UPDATE: It is working now. Downloading goes smoothly. My wireless network got a problem and now it is ok.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you so much for your attention, donavan.
I can easily install the Amazon App Store, and download a free app.

I do have Superuser icon. After running it, I have sub menus including apps (in which gingerbreak in "allow " status), log, and settings ( in which I can find the versions of superuser and su binary).

Is the above sufficient to prove that the LG Thrive has been rooted? If not, how to verify I have fully rooted it.

I tried downloading Angry Birds Rio, ES File Explorer, CSipSimple, etc, from Android Market, but none of them works. I can access to my email. Is my wireless Internet not fully working?

Originally Posted by donavan

This is from the Gingerbreak post over at XDA:

What the APK and exploit do is as follows:
- The APK puts the right files in the right place to run the exploit
- The APK runs the exploit
- The exploit attempts to attain root access
- If it succeeds, the exploit remounts /system as read-write and runs the installer script
- The installer script attempts to install the su binary and superuser APK, and reboots

So if you have the Superuser Icon then you should have a fully rooted phone (assuming the icon works of course) If you're unsure you can always unroot and reroot the phone. Also you can try downloading another app that requires root and if it doesn't install then you may not be rooted and you may have gotten a error somewhere in the mix.

As to why you cant install droidwall (assuming your rooted) I'm not sure I have it running on my Phoenix with no issues, I would suggest waiting a day or so and giving it another go. As to the busybox issue this is something that I have not tried but I do know there are a number of Busybox install methods/apks out there you may just have to try a few before you find one that your phone likes. I will start a new thread and we'll see if anyone out there has an answer to this.

**donavan** · 07-05-2011, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by foxatlarge

UPDATE: It is working now. Downloading goes smoothly. Not sure why.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you so much for your attention, donavan.
I can easily install the Amazon App Store, and download a free app.

I do have Superuser icon. After running it, I have sub menus including apps (in which gingerbreak in "allow " status), log, and settings ( in which I can find the versions of superuser and su binary).

Is the above sufficient to prove that the LG Thrive has been rooted? If not, how to verify I have fully rooted it.

I tried downloading Angry Birds Rio, ES File Explorer, CSipSimple, etc, from Android Market, but none of them works. I can access to my email. Is my wireless Internet not fully working?

If you have the 'su' binaries and the superuser icon installed and you are able to run the super user then you are rooted. Basically Gingerbreak causes the phone to hiccup, during this hiccup code can be injected in that allows for the loading of the su binaries if that works then the phone can be loaded with the superuser.apk file. As to the rest of the programs I really cant tell you why you cant download them. But you shouldn't need root to download them anyways. The reason you need root is to install programs that exceed the security level allowed by your phone by default.

**David420** · 08-26-2011, 10:41 PM

i have a thrive, i tried the method above.. and im curious how to delete at&t's crapware off the phone now that i've done this.

**philmiami** · 08-27-2011, 07:54 AM

this worked great for me.
I use it as a GoPhone and just wanted the root.
I emailed myself the link, enabled the side load of apps, put in debug mode with the phone code
Now I got root, because I had already purchased RootExplorer earlier and put it on the phone.
SuperUser asked for root permissions for it, allowed always
now I can look thru the phone.
I don't really think anything is bloatware (yet) but now I want to enable wi-fi tether that's about it since I gotta pay for the data anyway, why not use it with my wifi Xoom tablet when I can not get a signal on my other phone.

**flotwig** · 09-02-2011, 05:13 PM

Thanks for the guide! I bought my LG Thrive today from Best Buy, and it's already rooted and appears to be running fine. Thank you!

**markbc** · 09-11-2011, 11:24 PM

Thanks! This worked wonderfully on my gophone LG Thrive using method 1B (where did you get that phone code?!!!) and the gingerbreak. In less than five minutes I have SU and rooted the phone. (much easier than when I rooted my Aria! Now I am looking but can't seem to find alternative ROMs -like a Cyanogenmod for the LG Thrive -- there seems to be another LG model ROM but I am not sure it would work for the gophone LG Thrive!

**donavan** · 09-13-2011, 09:15 AM

The codes where posted somewhere else in the forms and Gingerbreak comes from the guys over at XDA. All I did was get it all into one place and tell everyone how I did it. As to you ROM question to the best of my knowledge there still isn't a working custom ROM for the Thrive or the Phoenix. There are some out there that will sort of run but they turn the screen blue and junk like that but unless someone has come up with one in the last few weeks, I don't think one exists. Of course I would love to be wrong on this one cause I want 2.3 in the worst way.

**David420** · 09-15-2011, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by donavan

A) Update your phone to the latest version Froyo 2.2.2 (some people have had some issues check the thread on that).

Can i get a link to that thread?

**PharmNerd** · 09-15-2011, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by David420

Can i get a link to that thread?

Here you go...

**LifesGoodPhoenix** · 09-15-2011, 03:16 PM

lg phoenix...thinking of rooting... run unknown source files can also be check by Settings-Applications.
curious on whats out there that wont run on a rooted phone. wish theyd just let you get rid of there dang bloat ware...its why im thinking of rooting.

**t2fastspin** · 09-15-2011, 08:56 PM

Same here. I just want to get rid of all the at&t crapware.

**LifesGoodPhoenix** · 09-16-2011, 12:54 AM

Still on the fence on rooting Phoenix... ive read alot of stuff. ive noticed that after you root you should get a file manager, busybox(whatever that is), and a backup utility. Is it nesesary to backup before? if so is there a free one that doesnt reqire rooting?
new to this, sorry if this is a bit much. just dont want a paper weight.
just to clerfy... i got gingerbreak installed. i press root and it does the rest? then i have a rooted phone with nothing really diferent other than i have the ability to delet, modify how ever i want. the phone functions as it did before?
i read that a rooted phone can tether( send out wifi,bluetooth) free. no data plan, data plan upgrade. Is this true?
Is there any other cool stuff with rooting? What apps should i get after,or before rooting? im sure i forgot some questions, please bear with me. but hell thats what this forum is for.

**donavan** · 09-16-2011, 09:22 AM