[GUIDE] Fascinate Beginners rooting read me *3/31/11*

[Sheepdog Elite]

*please be sure to read the disclaimer at the end of this post*

So I'm fairly new to the rooting community, and I wanted to write this post while it's all fresh in my brain. There are a bunch of awesome How to threads, props to DroidXcon, Gunnermike, adrynalyne, and the legion here in the forums for all the help and work they put it. Listen when they speak and remember to thank them. Thanks to Gunnermike for his contributions, and steering this post in the right direction, Landshark for a little nudge to keep this up to date, and DroidXcon for keeping me from noobing up my first sticky. Wait. That's the point here right? Oh well

That being said I suppose a lot of my questions haven't been "How do I?" but more "Why should I, What is, and Where do I?" I'm going to attempt to explain a lot of basics and outline the overall process without getting mucked up with how to.

I'm still new so anyone with more info can feel free to correct me, contribute, and expand upon what I relate here. I will probably miss a lot of credit, but I'll try to link appropriate threads because I wouldn't know anything without most of them.

As a basis for everything here, once you are rooted I STRONGLY recommend that you purchase Titanium Backup Pro key (or my backup pro which I have not used and cannot recommend). It will take 99% of the risk out of what you are doing. Use it to back up all of your apps, even if you have to totally reset your phone in the course of rooting, titanium back up will keep you from losing everything. The difference between the paid and free versions is a 15 minutes restore, as opposed to a "3 hour tour." By tour i mean restore one app at a time in a nearly manual fashion, except they come with all your data.

Backing up- Once you are rooted, begin to think about how to back up, and think about it often. It is crucial, because you will mess up eventually, and you will thank your lucky stars you have a back up. If I forgot, here is a formal thank you to everyone who ever mentioned that you should back up first, in any how to thread.

A fundamental back up that "should" never fail you is to simply copy and paste the entire contents of you SD card to your home computer. This will double your saves for both Titanium Backup, and Nandroid. What's that? Read on for nandroid explanation.

Titanium Backup - This app will allow you to save all of the personal data in any app you back up with it. The option App+Data is what gets everything "in" the app that wasn't there when you got it. Like text messages, and saved games. If your Rom back up fails, this is your hail mary from way in the back. I've had to revert to 100% factory phone, and with Titanium it was like I never hit that "factory reset" button. Titanium back up will also allow you to restore data when crossing over from DI01, to DL09, to DJ05, etc, without worrying about most things.
An opposing school of thought is that a nandroid back up will take care of everything for you. Having had all of my back ups corrupted at once, I won't go without it.

My Backup Pro- I'm including this because several members have expressed a preference. My backup pro is similar to Titanium Backup. It works without root in a very limited fashion, which is distinctly less useful. It has a nicer UI by some opinions, and offers it's own online storage space you can rent from the developer. If you are rooted the capabilities are almost identical to Titanium Backup.


*disclaimer*
Rooting has inherent risks, and will void your warranty as soon as you begin the process. Warning are not all inclusive, and should be followed. No one here on the forums can be held responsible for your actions, nor should their instructions be construed to imply any warranty or surety. Please remember to thank the people who have done the work here, I'm just trying to consolidate all of the information available with an over head view for informational purposes only.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

ROOTING RAINBOW

So this is a basic outline of the rooting process and components there of. If you need a map for where rooting goes, I'll try to provide it.

These are links to appropriate how to guides, basically getting you started.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/verizon-fascinate-rooting-roms-hacks/66762-tools-quick-links-please-read-post-1-before-posting-forum.html- Cred: DroidXcon (thanks)

http://forum.androidcentral.com/verizon-fascinate-rooting-roms-hacks/65924-guide-tools-information-mac-os-x-users.html- Cred: Braydon525

What is one click root?
One click root is basically an automated system for establishing a root on your phone. It is the easiest root method, and should be attempted first.

What is Odin?
Odin is a PC based utility that allows you to write important files such as roms, kernels, and radios, directly to your phone from download mode. To access download mode you remove your battery, hold the volume down key while you plug in the phone, and a big yellow triangle pops up. This allows you to flash software to a phone with broken recovery, or that won't boot at all. Flashing DI01 stock files is the best fix for many problems, and purges every nook and cranny of your phone. Other files don't "clean as deep" (Adrynalyne).

What is rom manager? (not suited for the fascinate)
Rom manager is an app available in the android market designed to make flashing roms, kernels, themes, and recoveries, to rooted devices in a very user friendly interface with lots of options. The developer has failed in the past to supply appropriate and/or functional content for the fascinate, and as such it should be avoided until you can identify these issues.

What is z4root? (not suited for the fascinate) z4root is basically an app that you can side load into android that auto-roots your phone. It doesn't work well on the fascinate for reason's I'm not really sure of, but is the prefered method for some phones.

What is adb? - (mostly for advanced users)
ADB is short for android debug bridge, it's the program that allows you to manually push root related files to your phone, as well as future modifications to your files. It's what is allowed to tap into your phones restricted area, and is made for developers to create software for the android operating system. This software is pretty easy to use if you understand it, if not, follow the directions offered by DroidXcon and the others and you'll be just fine. This will be a good opportunity to learn how adb works if you're not a programmer of any sort (like me).

Bricking - Bricking is what it's called when flashing through one error or another prevents your phone from booting up. Mostly these can be fixed by flashing back to either DL09, or DI01 via odin if nothing else works.

FLASHING

I will bypass explaining flashing via odin in favor of the more cryptic and intimidating CWM flashing. If you have rooted your phone according to the links above you know how odin works, and it's all about the same, except you choose a different file. Yes you need to dive in with odin, but you can know what's ahead by reading further, and I will try to include enough information to help you decide if rooting is for you.

Rooting your phone allows you to bypass any and all factory restrictions and safe guards on your phone. It is a quick process and will install Super User on your phone. Super User allows apps to use functions that are outside of what your normal (stock) operating system will allow, including access to your onboard memory. The onboard storage is normally reserved exclusively for the operating system, and it's native tasks such as installing apps, storing contacts, and texts messages, etc. Once rooted you can flash (install) Kernels, Roms, and Themes, as well as do neat stuff like copy and paste your entire life (phone) onto your SD card so you can put it back later if you delete or break it.

Common reasons to root-
Rooting allows you to
A. Back up just about EVERYTHING on your phone. Game saves, text messages, call logs, etc.
1. See the section on recovery, and roms for more info
B. Remove, or neutralize garbage software on your phone such as VZ Navigator, Blockbuster, CityID, and Visual Voice Mail.
1. See the section on roms for more info
C. Join in the endless pursuit of better battery life.
1. See the section on kernels for more info
D. Make deep and extensive modifications to the visual aspects of your phone.
1. See the sections on roms, and themes for more info
After you are rooted you can start flashing kernels and roms, or simply use an app to remove or neutralize all of the garbage software on your phone. Read below for more on kernels and roms.
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The building blocks of rooting
Once you have rooted your phone there are several components that can be interchanged, that all serve different purposes. They all must match along certain guide lines, for the most part.

Recovery/boot loader - This is what loads all of the other software to your phone when you power on. The custom recovery is part of what allows you to modify your entire system without using it like a blank CD and just writing it from a computer every time. This is when you start talking about clockwork mod and nandroid backups. More info below.

Kernel - This is the fundamental control system for you phone, commonly compared to drivers on your computer. It receives commands from the ROM and translates them to an image on the display, a vibration, or audio, as well as all other hardware related tasks. Think of this as the bridge between commands, and responses. Without air sound waves cannot travel, and without a kernel software cannot run. Swapping kernels produce changes in your phones behavior, and can include better GPS, better battery life, faster or slower performance, amongst other things. This is what people are talking about when they say voodoo.

There is a sub kernel called the radio, or modem. It is mostly unimportant until you advance to a certain point. They can be flashed individually. Flash to either DJ05, or DL09 first to ensure you have a compatible radio when you flash DL30 or EB01/EB16/DC10 based roms and kernels.

ROM - The ROM is the software that you and any apps interact with. It's the operating system on your phone like windows, or MacOS. You turn the volume on the stereo, and the music gets louder. The kernel makes it happen, but the ROM is where you tell it to. ROMs can change everything from the stock software selection, to how your menu's are navigated. Your rom must match your kernel, otherwise when an app tries to have the kernel do something, it's dialing a wrong number. See the "Common issues" section for more details.

Themes - Because theme's are totally optional and 99% cosmetic I will discuss themes with roms. Themes basically change the look of your integral menus and graphics.
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Fair warning, when you clear some caches, or install certain components, your next boot may take much longer. Be ready for it to take up to 15 minutes for your phone to reconstruct some file caches and other infrastructure.
______________________________________________________________________

After you have tinkered with kernels and roms, and become more comfortable you can consider switching to voodoo, over clocking, and other advanced mods.

Theme-ing can also be the next step if you find kernels and roms that you like, but are not interested in more advanced and dangerous activities. Read below for theme info.

What ROM/kernel should I use?-
This is a question with no sure answer. All roms and kernels interact a little differently, and will produce different results. Consider this an active experiment until you find something you like if you're going to flash beyond root and recovery. The most common ROM used with any kernel seems to be some variant of super clean (Adrynalyne and other have built several variants.) Super clean basically lacks all of the questionably "useless/unnecessary" software. Some go so far as to remove the touchwiz puzzle lock in favor of normal sliders, and replace the stock clock/calendar/messaging/etc apps in favor of the regular android ones. If you like these features you can stick to debloating, which I will discuss later.

I will think on this fundamental road map and try to expand where it seems appropriate.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

RECOVERY
Once you are rooted you will hear a lot about recovery. At this point there are several kinds, all different colors, and with green and red, there are two different generations. I will explain all of them including voodoo red for 2.1 which will be covered in the voodoo section.

To access recovery basically you power down your phone, and hold down both volume keys while powering back up. The samsung logo will come up, and go black, and then come back up. Hold down all three (both volumes, and power) keys until the second time samsung pops up and you will enter blue recovery.

Blue recovery - a.k.a. stock recovery, (2e) recovery
This is the factory "recovery" menu. It allows you to reset your phone, and install update.zip. Navigation is accomplished by the volume keys, and the home key selects your entry. Once you are rooted with odin via the post above the option to "install update.zip" will bring you to the Green Recovery.

Green recovery - a.k.a. clockwork mod recovery, CWM

For 2.1 eclair - This is a recovery app labeled as update.zip, and offers options to flash new kernels and roms without a computer. Navigation is accomplished by the volume keys, the power button selects your entry. From here you will primarily use the "install zip from SD card" option. This takes you to a menu to navigate your SD card for files containing roms, kernels, themes, and other software/data that is intended to be installed via CWM. Stay out of the advanced menu until you know enough to ignore what I'm saying anyway. Seriously.

For 2.2 Froyo - At this point the green recovery made to work with 2.2 is broken, and does not interface with the file system properly. You should avoid using it to ensure you flashing goes smoothly.

----------------
At this point the complications with Red and Orange may seem fairly extensive, stick with red, and if you aren't sure if you have the current red it is called CWM_recovery_all.tar, and can be flashed via odin. File and instructions are available here.
----------------

Red CWM for 2.2-
EB01 has received it's own build of CWM, and it's red, and looks just like voodoo red. This build has several problems with advanced features, and doesn't work fully. Patches are available to bridge this gap for the time being I guess. This applies to non-voodoo, and voodoo red for 2.2.

If your phone boots into blue recovery, and the update.zip launches a Red recovery then you have the red recovery that works properly with 2.2. If you have a voodoo 2.2 kernel, and you boot directly to red recovery then you have a fully functional red recovery. If you have a non-voodoo 2.2 kernel, and boot directly to red recovery then you MAY have a bad recovery for 2.1, and it will not work. See the voodoo section for more details.

Orange CWM- (Now for the fascinate!)
Orange recovery is the latest release, and uses a different installation scripting called edify. It will only work with files built to be flashed with it. This is the latest build, and all of the advanced features seem to work properly. Orange is the direction that developers are moving, and as such should now be used primarily.

A major benefit of Green and Red and Orange recovery is the built in "Nandroid" back up ability. This copies your rom, basically everything essential on your phone, to your SD card to be used later if you mess up. Go to backup and restore, and use the back up command the very first time you see it, and feel free to go back to it often. Also go back to it any time you're about to "flash" something, including roms, kernels, and themes. This process will seem to fail until you get used to it. If you think it has failed, start a timer, and in 20 minutes you should think it may have failed. It can take a long time, but doesn't always. Any time you are working in CWM expect it to take a little while. Generally failure gives you an error message promptly instead of just getting stuck. (Please note that nandroid does not back up your kernel, or modem/radio. JUST you rom.)

Recovery from some critical failures will require you to use odin to replace what you removed, and obviously didn't read the warnings about. This includes VooDoo, once again, be patient and get to voodoo when you're further along this post in actual practice.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

Kernels - WTH is DL09? Am I DJ05?

There are four main types of Kernels for the fascinate, all other kernels (to the best of my knowledge) are based around them

Voodoo is a trait of kernels, and is totally unrelated to Roms just to clarify that up front.

DH12 - Original factory kernel that kind of sucked, and isn't discussed or used much.

DI01 - This is the current factory kernel(?) for the samsung fascinate. It was very stable, but had issues with GPS, and a few other things. This is commonly considered "stock" since the phone comes out of the box with this build last I knew, but I could be wrong.

DJ05 - DJ05 is a non-factory kernel that is currently the most commonly used by the root crowd. It is built off of a leaked factory kernel that was never released, but was built up to run well by the development community. It is very stable, and fixes the GPS and other issues commonly experienced with the fascinate, and to the best of my knowledge is lacking any major bugs. (This is going to be the most rewarding route for new rooters to get their feet wet without being a voluntary beta tester.)

DL09 - The latest release of android 2.1 from samsung and verizon to fix the GPS issues, released Jan 2011. The factory verision of this kernel came with two serious bugs. First you can no longer mount your SD card to your computer, and must use an adapter, or a test kernel which removes the bad drivers from the kernel interface. (see common issues below) Second, if you use a pattern lock the emergency call button no longer opens the dialer. You must unlock the phone so you can dial 911, or any other emergency number.

EA28 - EA28 is the release to fix the bugs that turned up in DL09. Not much to say about it.

DL30- DL30 kernels are currently in short supply. DL30 kernels are built to run the new android 2.2 leak for the fascinate. DL30 has been mostly abandoned in favor of, the superior, EB01. A word of caution: make sure you have the DL09 or DJ05 radio flashed previous to flashing DL30. The DI01 radio kernel is not compatible.

EB01 - This is the latest froyo/2.2 build recently released. Has some bug fixes over DL30. Has it's own radio, kernel, and rom. For the most current software, which is mostly bug free, click here.

EB16/EC10- These kernels were grabbed from another fascinate variant (the mesmerize) I believe. It has been modified in a bunch of ways to improve stability, functionality, etc. Being that this is not an official fascinate kernel I'll keep it to a minimum.

ED01- Official froyo! YAY! Gets rave reviews, and appears to be mostly bug free for now.

You can check your kernel build on your phone from the home screen. Press Menu>settings>about phone (at the bottom). At the bottom of this list is build number, and the last 4 characters under this heading will tell you.

Once you understand your kernels then the experiment begins. Loading different kernels will affect the performance of your phone in some potentially unpredictable ways. There is no awesome kernel, and finding information on what the kernels do seems to be difficult without reading through each and every post over at XDA. Adrynalyne has his own sticky for his very popular super clean rom, with available dummy tether kernels, in voodoo, and non-voodoo. The selection is limited until source code becomes available for 2.2 for the fascinate.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

Roms-

As I mentioned above, a rom is the part of the software that you interact with and manipulate. Everything in your app drawer is part of the rom. Text messaging? rom. Settings? rom.

Lets start with backing up a rom. Use the above mentioned information to lead you in creating a back up of your ROM. This creates a duplicate of your whole phone, and can be dropped on top of a compatible kernel, or replace all of your valuable information if you have to start over from stock.

When flashing a new ROM it is commonly suggested that your wipe your cache, and data, and dalvik cache (CWM advanced menu) before flashing a new rom. These options can be found in CWM. This advice also gets ignored a lot.

When you load a new rom there are usually 2 flavors that people can choose from. (There are actually tons of different roms that reach far and wide into differnt options. These are just the common ones.)

Stock - These are commonly a factory set up, and may already be rooted.

Super Clean - These are commonly stripped of all carrier and factory additional software to save space and improve speed. These can also come with some mandatory apps replaced with similar ones from other builds. This includes the clock, calendar, messaging client etc.

Deodexed - These are really just a sub set of the other flavors. Deodexed roms are modified to allow replacement of many apps that are crucial to the phones operations. Most super clean roms are deodexed, and will allow you to install compatible software. Sonofskywalker3 has released the blackhole series rom, and it is a "build your own" rom that will allow you to experiment with various components if you don't know what you want to try. It can be found with some others in ROM manager. Be warned that replacing apps manually can lead to force close errors amongst on things. You may not want to try out that friend stream widget you found over on the Droid Incredible forum.

EB01 Froyo (android version 2.2) - Released/leaked recently this is a fully operation build of the leaked 2.2 Froyo for the fascinate. EB01 is much improved. If you've got some experience under your belt, or not, give it a whirl. The XDA thread is here. Android central has an active post about it here as well.

Roms are available that run two different versions of the operatings system. Android 2.2 froyo is the newest. Custom themes and roms can add cool features and options to your normal user experience. Like giving you options to reboot to recovery, and download mode directly from your shut down screen. With roms the possibilities are endless, and you can truly build your own experience when you become more advanced.

Selecting a Rom is mostly about what you'd like to do with your phone. Stock comes with bloatware and doesn't allow themes. Debloated/Deodexed allows you flash themes, without removing any of the stock functions of your phone. Super clean is designed to remove as much of the touchwiz interface as possible, and replace it with google's original android options and functions.

(Ganked directly from an unfinished write up by Gunnermike53, since he covered it pretty completely, and it's about what I was gonna say.)
Themes, and there are too many to mention, are flashed in the same way as roms, through ROM Manager or CWM. Themes do various things such as change the battery icon, and add graphics to the settings menu. They also add additional boot options in your power button menu.

Most custom kernels allow you to change the boot animation. Some are available from Sonofskywalker3 in ROM Manager. Others are available from XDA and other forums. Some can be flashed via rom manager or CWM. You cannot change your boot animation with the stock kernels.

A word of caution, themes designed for DJ05 are not compatible with DL09, or DI01, etc (for the most part, mix and match at your own risk). There is a hack available that will get DJ05 themes to work with DL09 (for the most part, nandroid first).
({end plagarism}) DL30 roms, built for android 2.2, are definitely not compatible with previous builds. This is not a problem being there is an abundance of themes ported for DL30 at this point, as well as EB01.

Jaekar99 has been good enough to assemble a massive selection of EB01 and various other roms, themes, and mods in his sticky

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

So I've recently taken the plunge into voodoo and had great success. I'll try to start at the beginning. (Voodoo is easy by the way.)

What is voodoo?- Voodoo is simply a nickname for a process intended to speed up the samsung fascinate. Basically what voodoo does is remaps the way information is stored on your phones internal memory. You need a voodoo kernel to read the newly mapped data storage. This is easy to start because voodoo kernels are what performs the voodoo conversion. Install it, and that's what happens. The hard part is removing voodoo unless you're prepared. Be sure to read up on how to remove voodoo in gunnermike53's awesome how to voodoo post.

Rebooting after disabling voodoo, but before you flash a new kernel, is a critical step that is easily and commonly over looked. This is because the existing voodoo kernel has to rewrite the internal memory back to the normal data system, and a non-voodoo kernel isn't made to perform this conversion.

Red/Orange Clockwork Mod - Red/Orange clockwork mod is designed for use with voodoo and come with some options specifically for voodoo. Once you flash red/orange CWM it will show up when you boot into recovery instead of blue. Navigation in red/orange CWM is the same as green CWM, except the menu button now takes you back one menu, and the home button turns your display off and on. When you flash red CWM via odin you may install a voodoo kernel without realizing it. Be sure to follow the steps to remove voodoo before you flash a new non-voodoo kernel.

Other effects of voodoo- Voodoo currently can come with several characteristics which you may or may not enjoy, but is entirely subjective.
1. Voodoo can cause variances in standard screen color and brightness. This is by design, for some desirable effects. It improves the color accuracy of the incredible Super AMOLED screen, as well as helping remove the halos around text generated by high sharpness filters. It also fixes the slight blue-ish lean of the stock samsung screen calibration (only currently functional at 100% brightness).
2. Sound level improvements from stock. The fascinate includes a very good audio output capability out of the box, but it is not being taken advantage of. These can be controlled via the Voodoo Control app. (Not all voodoo kernels are compatible with this app.)

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

Debloating- That's the point right?

There are two ways to go about debloating. One is "safer", allowing you to restore any "damage" you might inflict and want to undo later. The other will clear space on your internal storage, but is a good bit harder to reverse without putting a lot of work in to restore all of your personal data.

The first (and the one I suggest starting with) is called freezing. This can be accomplished with two apps that I know of, but i'm sure there are more. One is called bloat freezer, and the other is the paid version of titanium backup which I have recommended you purchase already. I have used both, and the results were similar. Bloat freezer claims to be more effective than titanium back up with certain apps. Freezing basically isolates the app from your system entirely, as though it were not installed. It won't run, show up in your app drawer, or anywhere else. The upside of this is you can just hit the thaw button and it's like nothing ever happened. The results of using either one of these apps can be duplicated by purchasing a "Root file manager". This will allow you to access and modify the contents of your phones internal memory. You can simply rename the files by adding .old to the end, and it will effectively neutralize them. For example blockbuster.apk would become blockbuster.apk.old. To set your system back the way it came you simply remove the .old from the end of the files, and viola.

The second, once rooted, and with appropriate software, is to just uninstall the apps in question. Read this post by Corey Streater (thanks again) before you start, and follow it to avoid serious system issues. Restoring these apps later if you wish to receive over the air updates from verizon can be difficult. You can back them up with titanium back up, but some don't like to reinstall and can cause other problems.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

Common Issues

Q: OMG I BRICKED MY MOTHER LOVING PHONE! WHAT DO I DO!?!?!
A: Calm down, this isn't a big deal. Re-read the instructions and make sure you didn't skip any steps, then ask for help. If you Rooted, then backed up the way I suggested then you'll be back up and running in no time.

Q: I'd like to keep my phone mostly stock, so I'm just going to debloat my rom.
A: Debloating doesn't serve much purpose unless there are verizon apps that you like. (Visual voicemail, blockbuster, VZ navigator, etc.) A debloated rom is usually available, and can come with some other improvements without straying too far from the reservation.

Q: Can I still receive over the air updates if I modify my phone?
A: Generally no, however this isn't an issue. In my experience with rooting and flashing my phone the developers will always have the new software available before, if not immediately after the OTA update becomes available, and you'll be able to update yourself with less effort than repairing a manually debloated rom.

Q: I've just rooted but now my phone doesn't vibrate when I push a button, and my blue tooth won't turn on.
A: You've flashed a mis-matched kernel and ROM. If you followed other how to root posts then you may have a DI01 kernel, and most likey a DL09 rom from the verizon update. Simply flash a matching kernel using any of the techniques available.

Q: My battery life stinks ever since I rooted.
A: Typically this is a flashing issue if you haven't loaded any new apps, or loaded different roms. Flashing roms and kernels come with inherent risks. For base line battery life, flash major components with your battery fully charged, and follow up by using the information on repairing damaged battery performance, which can be found in GunnerMike53's lovely post.

Q: I've loaded a ROM/kernel and now when I start my phone up I just get a non-stop stream of force close messages (touchwiz, acore, messaging, or media all mentioned repeatedly.)
A: Yes you have discovered the force close loop! Congratulations you're officially getting your hands dirty and seems to have encountered a right of passage. This can be caused by bad back ups, or severely mis-matched kernels and ROMs, as well as a mismatched theme. This can also be caused by conflicting apps/infrastructure from not formatting before you flash a new rom/kernel/theme.
-One solution can be found here courtesy of Corey Streater (Thanks man). This will be necessary if you happen to kill the contents of your SD card along the way, or somehow lose your CWM.
-The way I was able to fumble out of mine required a rooted stock kernel/rom on my SD card. I flashed the stock kernel from recovery, and then applied a factory reset/data wipe from recovery. It cost me everything on my phone, but I was able to receive calls in under a half hour. Set up gmail again, and download titanium backup. I used titanium back up to restore all of my apps. It was a long process, but better than losing everything for good.

Common solutions:
Commonly things that can be done to prevent problems include;

1. Wipe cache partition in CWM
2. Wipe dalvik cache in the advanced menu of CWM
3. When making major changes wipe data/factory reset. Restore apps via Titanium back up or similar.
4. Sometimes minor bugs/hangs can be resolved by rebooting.

In the case of serious failures that can't be resolved easily there are two nuclear grade fixes.
DI01 back to stock massive repair is here. This will make your phone fit to go back to the verizon store.
Adrynalye's EB01 massive repair is here (No longer relevant with release of ED01, please use DI01 then over the air update back to ED01)

In case of flashing something for a different phone, you can try using heimdall. Flashing firmware for another phone (captivate, vibrant, international galaxy S I-9000) will seriously bork your phone, and requires extreme measures to repair. This is extremely risky, and should be used as a last resort. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. DO NOT USE HEIMDALL UNLESS YOU HAVE TO! LINK

 

[gunnermike53]

good job sheepy!!!

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

good job sheepy!!!

Don't pat me on the back too hard. That nick name of mine is going to earn you my undying respect in the form of forwarding any questions i'm asked to you

 

[gunnermike53]

Don't pat me on the back too hard. That nick name of mine is going to earn you my undying respect in the form of forwarding any questions i'm asked to you

lol. lol.

 

[badong]

im new to droid os and have been researching thiese forums for the past 2 hours on rooting- it sounds great and wanted to try it so i downloaded the drivers and followed all the instructions indicated for beginners on the now closed rooting thread. the problem is- no matter how many times and variations i tried my phone will not connect with the computer after reboot, i tried all the troubleshooting suggestions and nothing. my phone always says connected but the root system driver doesnt recognize it and my computer reads no disk connected. what am i doing wrong?

 

[DroidXcon]

im new to droid os and have been researching thiese forums for the past 2 hours on rooting- it sounds great and wanted to try it so i downloaded the drivers and followed all the instructions indicated for beginners on the now closed rooting thread. the problem is- no matter how many times and variations i tried my phone will not connect with the computer after reboot, i tried all the troubleshooting suggestions and nothing. my phone always says connected but the root system driver doesnt recognize it and my computer reads no disk connected. what am i doing wrong?

If this is a problem i would suggest moving onto the ADB method. I wrote that guide, i even modified the One click to get it to work for everyone else but i couldnt get it to work on my computer for some reason but ADB method works every great. Not every method will work for everyone that is why i gave so many alternative methods.

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

*Bump* 3/4+ finished

 

[jtbledo85]

Sheepdog awesome guide /write up it made me feel more comfortable with the rooting process along with DroidXcons write ups.

When u are done I vote for a sticky

 

[reverepats]

ive been reading up on ROOTING for over a month now....this is by far one of the best guides, and KNOW HOW on rooting.....ya did a hell of a job writing this up....and im sure alot of people are gonna benifit from this (including myself)....some info out there can be very misconstrued...thanks alot...i bookmarked this page for myself to visit back for some info...thanka again

 

[Benny9]

Excellent JOB not to say the other FAQ's and Guides aren't excellent also, just that this ties it all together in a nutshell. I would have to say even though the Top of this section is getting pretty deep with sticky's that this has to be Stickied,Closed,Done and DONE!
Thanx Benny

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Awesome work! Stickied.

 

[phommk]

Disclaimer: Once youre rooted...you wont be able to put down your fascinate

 

[Sheepdog Elite]

Disclaimer: Once youre rooted...you wont be able to put down your fascinate

It's the truth. I'm fairly visually fixated, so once I hit themes it was all over for me. I just wish people would make awesome themes faster LOL.