Please help an iPhone convert

[superlawyer15]

The thunderbolt is my first android phone, and I am beyooond pissed at how its loaded up with garbage from verizon.

I've been researching for days, trying to teach myself how to root and install a rom without all the VZW crap on it but I don't know anywhere near what I need to know to follow the steps to root my device.

can someone pleeaase, pleeeeease post a noob's guide to the rooting steps on androidpolice.com

thanks in advance

 

[brobertsleo]

PM Me and I'll try to help you.

 

[superlawyer15]

the guy who posted above me stayed up for 3 hours to help me out

totally cool guy

thanks a lot for your help

got all that VZW junk off my phone

 

[Texansfan4life]

the guy who posted above me stayed up for 3 hours to help me out

totally cool guy

thanks a lot for your help

got all that VZW junk off my phone

Welcome to the open source community. You'll find that the guys on this side of the fence are much more helpful than their "Geniuses" .

Mike

 

[hurstkb]

Android rookie

Hi,

FINALLY got away from my enV Touch and able to stop drooling over android phones that everyone I knew were getting. I'm debating rooting my Tbolt but I'm wondering if rooting is reversible... I'm trying to gauge if the benefits I'll see (other than removing crap from VZW stuck on my phone) are worth voiding the warranty? Please help. Also, some users on another post mentioned using One Click to root their phones but it isnt available for tbolt yet? Super newbie here, just as a reminder. I really appreciate any help I can get on this. I'd love to enjoy my phone not hampered and crapped on by verizons customizations.

Thanks

 

[brobertsleo]

While rooting does "technically" void your warranty, as long as you unroot before sending it to Verizon for service they will never know you rooted it. Therefore, you warranty won't be void. Now if you send in a rooted phone, say bye-bye to that warranty bro. Also, if you aren't confortable with command lines and ADB then I recommend you wait for a one-click root method, such as unrevoked.

 

[Goronok]

Which process did you use to root & remove bloat on your TBolt? I am also an android newbie. (coming from 4 years with an iPhone)

 

[KSmithInNY]

As a suggestion moving forward, things like this should not be done in private. It's much more beneficial to the entire community to play it out on a forum. The reason i say that is, look up .... more people have the exact same question and because this played out behind closed doors, they have no answers.

To answer the questions. The "bloat" is stored in a directory called /system. More specifically /system/app. As a normal user you only have r/o privileges to this directory which means you can't edit anything. To explain a little better for the windows guys, rooting your phone makes you the admin of your machine. So to become the admin of your machine aka your phone, you need to root. The trick with HTC phones is you also need to unlock NAND, not just root.

Once you're rooted with an unlocked NAND, you can use ADB to access /system or pony up a couple of bucks for an amazing app in the market called "Root Explorer". What root explorer does is allows those with rooted phones to mount r/w permission on the /system directory. This can be done on the fly without a PC.

Ok so you've rooted, you've got Root explorer, when you opened it you gave it root permissions .... whats next? Simple.

Go to the "system" directory, then go to the "app" directory. Now your faced with a bunch of apk files each with a matching odex file. These are what needs to be removed to remove an app. Inside of system/app directory in root explorer, look at the top of the screen and you'll see a button that you can click to mount as r/w, click that. You now have r/w on system and can remove apk's and odex files

HERE IS A WARNING - Do not just go willy nilly removing stuff!!!!!! you will break something, you will regret it, you will then probably require someone to help you get back up and working again.

Cheers!

EDIT - HERE is the guide i wrote for the EVO guys back when i had an EVO. The concept should be similar if not the same. Please read it and feel free to copy and use it in any fashion you want and modify it to suit the Thunderbolt.

EDIT #2 - Some dude named Cory Streater (Hey Cory!) made perfect instructions for you guys.

 

[superlawyer15]

As much as I agree with you that a lot of other people could of benefited from having it done publicly in the forum, it really wouldn't of been practical..

it took a very very long time to do it on, (about 3 hours of messaging on skype)

if brobertsleo agrees, I have the convo saved and don't mind posting it

but like i said its very very very long...