[Guide] Atrix Rooting, FAQ's, & How To's (Updated 2/19/10)

[Cory Streater]

Work in progress. Please contact me via PM if you can help me fill in the blanks. Thanks!​

Post #1 = Index
Post #2 = FAQ
Post #3 = One click root (Beginner)
Post #4 = ADB rooting (Beginner-Intermediate)
Post #5 = TBD
Post #7 = TBD
Post #8 = How to root using a Mac (TBD)
Post #9 = Removing apps once rooted (TBD)
Post #10 = Credits (TBD)

 

[Cory Streater]

Q: What is Root?
A: Root, is super user access of your phones operating system. Think of your phone as a desktop computer. Right now you are logged on as a guest account. you can browse things and use applications but if you really want to change anything in your system you can't. What gaining root does is it gives you superuser permission to alter files that you could not before; again thinking of it as a computer you now have an Administrator account.

Q:Does rooting void my warranty?
A:Yes and no. If you walk into your carriers store with a phone that has Root access and they actually check it they have the right to say this phone was tampered with. But for those of you in the know, there are methods to unroot your phone first.

Q: Does rooting slow down my phone or drain battery.
A: NO, root is not an application or a running process, gaining root does not do anything but give you permissions that you normally would not have. Basically all you did during the rooting process was move files around. Its what you do with this new found permission that changes things. But as far as just rooting it does not make a difference.

Q: Will i lose any apps or data during the rooting process?
A: No, for the same reason as above. Rooting is basically just moving some files around. Of course there is always a risk of something happening in any process. I would say chances are of causing serious problems is slim to non. Its what you do with this new found permission that changes things. But as far as just rooting it does not make a difference.

Q: I lost root during an update, am i doomed?
A: No, what happend was the file containing your super user access was over written. Just re-attempt gaining root and you will be fine.

 

[slushy]

I was having issues rooting my Atrix using my Macbook Pro. I have a WinXP install running under VirtualBox which failed using superoneclick.

So I hunted around until I found this on XDA:
[SCRIPT] aRoot for Atrix 4G [ root - init.d - sideloading - tethering ] - xda-developers

DesignGears (starter of thread above) has a script that you can try to run which roots, enables sideloading, and enables tethering. You should try it but I couldn't get it to work either (using VirtualBox) -- as is at least.

Basically, I modified what he did so that:
1) the adb.exe he has is replaced with the mac version of adb (downloaded from the 2.3 SDK)
2) modified the root and unroot scripts so that they are valid UNIX sh scripts instead of Windows /bat files.
3) removed the stuff from the root script that "cleaned up" the mess left by SuperOneClick. Since I never got s1c to run cleaning it up seemed silly.

I'm not sure you should trust me but attached is a zip you can extract to do the job.

A completely reasonable thing to do, instead of trusting a random dude on the internet, would be to
1) Download the mac android sdk from google (http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r10-mac_x86.zip) to snag a copy of adb you know is good
2) Download the original aRoot.7zip from the XDA thread
3) download my copy of the aRoot.zip
4) compare my aRoot.sh to the original aRoot.bat, verifying that nothing untoward is being done.

My atrix is now rooted! have fun!

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

[How-To] Root your Atrix

All credit goes to designgears from XDA. This is a copy/paste of the instructions he posted there.

Works on any Atrix, rooted, deodexed, stock, doesn't matter!!
OLYFR_U4_1.2.6 supported
OLYFR_U4_1.5.2 supported

Features:
Root
Installs tethering apn(enable the apn AFTER you enable mobile hotspot)
Unlocks all APN's for editing
Enables init.d support (on the android side, sample script mounts /system rw)
Installs Superuser.apk
Enables Non-market apps (sideloading)
Installs su and sqlite3 binaries to /system/bin
Removes oneclickroot busybox mess (if it exists)
unRoot script

How to use:
note: xp users, you will get an error about the TIMEOUT function, ignore it.
Enable USB Debugging on your phone (settings > applications > development > enable USB debugging)
Plug your phone into your computer
Extract aRoot.7z
Run aRoot.bat (run unRoot.bat to unroot)

Download link for the script:

aRoot script