Rooting Guide (Orange UK HTC Hero Only)

So, you want to do more with your phone than Google/HTC ever intended?! I don’t blame you! Here’s how to unlock “root” your phone;

Warning : Following this guide could in theory brick your phone. This guide is written using my own experience of following instructions from various sources and is specifically written for the Orange-branded Hero (firmware version 2.73.61.5). DO NOT follow this guide if you do not understand the risks and/or your firmware version does not begin 2.73.

Part 1: Prepare your system and phone for some fun
1 ) Download and unpack the Android SDK to the root of one of your drives (c:\ for example). You should then have c:\AndroidSDK\…

2 ) Install the HTC adb drivers – there are two ways to do this – install them from the “usb_driver” folder in the AndroidSDK package or install HTC Sync from HTC. 64bit Windows 7 users have a bit of leg work to get drivers installed which for now is outside of the scope of this guide.

3 ) Check that your computer see’s your Hero…connect the phone to the computer using the USB cable and either manually install the drivers or run HTC Sync from the above step. Once the drivers are installed, open a command prompt and CD to the location where you unpacked AndroidSDK (i.e. c:\AndroidSDK). CD into the “Tools” directory under “AndroidSDK“. At the command prompt, type “adb devices” (so depending upon where AndroidSDK is located that would be c:\AndroidSDK\tools\adb devices”. If the drivers are working, your device (starting HT) will be listed, if nothing is listed, something went wrong, check device manager for any uninstalled drivers, fix and try again.

4 ) Download the superuser package and extract it to the “Tools” directory under “AndroidSDK” (the package contains Superuser.apk and the su binary required later).

Part 2: Installing the custom recovery image

Next you need to replace the recovery image with one which allows access via the adb interface (HTC patched the exploit in the current Orange firmware which is why this is necessary – you can backup the original one though so don’t panic).

Best to use a blank SD Card for the next bit…

5 ) Download the patched recovery image (mirror), extract it and put it in the root of the SD Card (cm-hero-recovery.img)

6 ) Download and install Flashrec on the device. When done, open the “Recovery Flasher” from the programs menu. Clear whatever text is in the text box and click on the “Backup Recovery Image” button. This will backup the current recovery image (and can be restored should the need arise).

7 ) Once you’re happy the backup image has been created (check the SD Card for the “recovery-backup.img” file), go back to the “Recovery Flasher” and in the text box enter “sdcard/cm-hero-recovery.img” and then click on the “Flash Custom Recovery Image” button and wait for the process to finish.

You phone now has a “useful” recovery image (i.e. one that you can use to root your device). To test the flash has worked properly, turn the phone off, then turn it back on again holding “Power” and “Home” together for a couple of seconds until the recovery menu appears (black background and green menu options).

Part 3: Rooting the device

With the phone sat at the recovery console (as described above) and connected to your computer with the USB cable, do the following…

8 ) Open a command prompt (or continue from the previous one) to the “Tools” folder of the “AndroidSDK” install. Double check the phone and computer are talking by typing “adb devices” – you should get the same output as in Step 3, if not, unplug the cable and replug to kick the device recognition.

9 ) Type the following commands in this order:

1. adb shell mount /system
2. adb push su /system/bin/
3. adb shell chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
4. adb push Superuser.apk /system/app/
5. adb shell reboot

If all goes well, each command will execute without errors (for the two “push” commands you will get file transfer stats), the final command will reboot the device.

After all this, your phone will be rooted (properly), and if the desire takes you, you can also install custom ROMs from MoDaCo and others using the custom recovery menu you’ve installed.

This may look like a massive amount of effort, but it’s literally a 5 minute job from start to finish and if you need to revert, there is a backup on your SD Card which you can flash back using the “Recovery Flasher” program.

Sources: 1 | 2

See also: Installing a custom ROM

~ by djbandroid on February 10, 2010.