Notes on a first time root from a N00B

[droche42]

Have pity on me, for I am a n00b.

So my wife's phone was eating battery like crazy. It would overheat, freeze, and just didn't work like we thought it would. My Blackberry was more stable and intuitive. Someone mentioned rooting it would help and I ended up here last night.

I followed all the instructions found http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-optimus-s-rooting-roms-hacks/79208-how-rooting-ls670zvd-gingerbreak-no-reverting-ota-works-too.html to the letter.

I then installed the Xionia CWMA http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-optimus-s-rooting-roms-hacks/59359-custom-recovery-xionia-clockwork-cwma-v1-2518-6-a.html

Then I flashed my first ROM: http://forums.androidcentral.com/lg-optimus-s-rooting-roms-hacks/78229-rom-reborn-rom-v2-2-2-6-28-11-a.html

I just wanted to say that everything worked out good. I had no major problems, phone didn't brick etc. GREAT JOB! And I left the phone on all night and it was still on this morning with the same amount of battery life. Also seems to be a lot faster.

With all that said, it took me 2.5 hours of n00bness to accomplish all of that. A lot of it was installing JDK and the ADK, plus two computer reboots (I think one I confused the instructions calling for a phone reboot, but I rebooted computer. HEH)

One Question: When I went through the original instructions to root my phone, using gingerbreak, the last step claims "14) You're done! You may now reboot and have fun with your rooted Optimus!" But when I rebooted phone and was moving on to Xionia, I noticed my adb shell only had the $ sign, not the # sign. So I did the following to get the #:

$ rm -r /data/local/tmp
rm -r /data/local/tmp
$ mkdir /data/local/tmp
mkdir /data/local/tmp
$ exit
exit

C:\optimusrootzvd>adb push gingerbreak /data/local/tmp/gingerbreak
1027 KB/s (16830 bytes in 0.016s)

C:\optimusrootzvd>adb push su /data/local/tmp/su
1709 KB/s (26264 bytes in 0.015s)

C:\optimusrootzvd>adb push busybox /data/local/tmp/busybox
1640 KB/s (1926944 bytes in 1.147s)

C:\optimusrootzvd>adb push superuser.apk /data/local/tmp/superuser.apk
925 KB/s (94728 bytes in 0.100s)

C:\optimusrootzvd>adb shell
$ cd /data/local/tmp
cd /data/local/tmp
$ chmod 777 /data/local/tmp/*
chmod 777 /data/local/tmp/*
$ ./gingerbreak
./gingerbreak

Are there a certain number of steps I need to perform each time I want to gain root status, or should it be a # everytime I adb shell?

2nd Question: All of her contacts seem to be gone. Will these come back after she syncs up her google stuff? (She didn't have gmail before the phone. Only signed up because of the phone)

Question 3: What exactly was backed up? Can I do selective restores? For instance, she had Angry Birds and some scrabble game, which are gone now. Could I restore those from backup of the stock system to use on the Reborn ROM?

Question 4: All the files I put on the root of the SD card..can I remove those? The card is only 2GB. It seems to me after I've installed them that the zip files don't need to be on the root anymore, right?

Thanks again!

 

[dizzle16]

I can only speak from my experience but after root my contacts were restored through Google. I also didn't have a gmail accebefore this phone but if she had her gmail account synced with her phone contacts will restore. In my opinion I would spend 10 and buy a 4gb micro SD card before deleting all files you put on SD card just because you may do something and want to revert back and wont be able to unless you did a nand backup and finally unless you did backup before rooting which is prob unlikely then you will have to redownload apps expect for ones you may have paid for. When you enter you Google user name and password at the market it should retain any app you paid for.

 

[epeereboom]

First of all, congradulations on rooting, installing recovery, and flashing your first rom.

Your wife's contacts should return when she syncs up google. As far as I know you can't selectively restore apks from recovery ( if I'm wrong I'm positive some one here can help you with that). After rooting, you could have gone to the market and grabbed titanium backup or mybackup pro and used that to backup the apks and data. Then after flashing your rom, you just use that same program to restore all that info.

As far as removing the files from the root of the sd card, you could probably go ahead and do that. They should always be here in case you need to use them again.

 

[drewwalton19216801]

You don't need to run the GingerBreak exploit every time you want a root shell. Android doesn't give a root shell by default (even when rooted), so you need to ask for one.

Instructions:
1) Fire up your ADB shell
2) Execute the "su" command (without quotes) Make sure your phone's screen is ON and not at the lock screen!
3) Allow the Superuser permissions prompt.
4) Done! Once you do these steps, all you will have to do in the future is execute the "su" command to get a root shell. Individual apps that need root access will take care of this themselves, you will just need to allow the Superuser prompt.

Looks like all of your other questions/issues have been answered

Oh, and welcome to Android Central! You seem to be getting the hang of things quite well!

 

[uberjam545]

I'll answer your questions that weren't answered yet:

1. the easiest way to get the # is to enter su (for super user) into adb shell or terminal emulater whatever it is your using.

3. what was backed up is pretty much everything that was on your phone when you did the backup, you can not restore just certain apps and stuff but everybody uses an app called titanium backup which you can use to back up certain apps and even your wifi access points and you should check it out for sure.

4. yes you can remove the .zip files but I recommend that you keep the ReBorn.zip because every now and then something stops working with the rom and the best way to fix it is a dirty flash (flashing a rom without wiping data, cache, or dalvik) and it's way easier to do that if it's already on your phone and you don't have to download it again.

 

[droche42]

Thanks for your answers guys.

That SU command is huge. I was concerned I had to do all those steps each time to root. Good to know!

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[clindner]

Thanks for posting this. I am about to root and update my son's phone, because it is really a piece of junk with the stock stuff on it!

Can you tell me how you decided to use the recovery and rom that you chose, particularly the Reborn over the CM7?

I am doing this to make his phone more stable, and I don't want to create more work for myself by putting something on that requires more work later. I hope to install it and forget it, if you know what I mean.