Monday, July 2, 2012

Root The Galaxy Nexus (GSM Only)

Disclaimer: Neither Abhinavasblog, nor Google Inc. should be held responsible for any damage happened to your device in the process of Rooting your Phone. 

Rooting your Galaxy Nexus is the easiest thing you will ever know...



WHY ROOTING?
Well... there is no single answer for this. So before we talk about "why rooting" lets know "what is rooting".


WHAT IS ROOTING?
Android is a Linux based Operating System... (For Non techies: Linux is just another Operating System like Windows and Mac ).

By default user do not have permission to modify any integral settings of the operating system, this has been implemented to save the OS from Users as they can accidentally perform some awesomely crazy changes.

This limitation also takes away the power from your phone as some times software need those kind of permissions to work. This permission is known as ROOT PERMISSION.

Hence the word ROOTING came up.

So back to our basic question WHY ROOTING?
In order to get complete access t make modifications and customization of the Operating System you need to root.


WILL I LOOSE WARRANTY?
Yes and No..

Yes if you go with your rooted device to claim warrany and No if you reflash the original os : Please reffer to my previous post to know how to flash original OS.


ENOUGH TALK LETS FIGHT
Caution: Please make sure your battery is above 50% of charge. Take Backup as all your data on mobile will be lost.


Step 1 Unlock Boot loader:

  • adb reboot bootloader
  • adb devices 
    • If cannot find your device
      • Add Device
      • Device Manager
      • Right Click on Android 1.0
      • Manually update driver
      • Choose Driver from List
      • Android Usb Devices
      • Samsung USB Composite
  • Fastboot oem unlock

Step 2 Install Recovery:
Recovery is a piece of tool that allows you to install/ update/ replace/ reset your OS. The default recovery that we have in our device has very limited set of capabilities.
There are several options available to you I personally liked

Download from Here : http://www.clockworkmod.com/rommanager/
I myself am using Touch Recovery It is from the same place but specific to Galaxy Nexus GSM.


  • fastboot flash recovery  optimus_prime-touch-v5.5.0.4-6-GSM.img
  • fastboot oem lock
You have successfully flashed the new Recovery. Restart your phone.

Step 3 Install Root:
Download Super User Zip from WGeekz link v0.94


  • Copy the zip to Device.
  • Switch off your device 
  • Start your Phone by pressing Volume Up + Volume Down + Power
  • You device should start in bootloader mode.
  • Use Volume up and Down to navigate for Recovery Mode
  • Press Power button to go into recovery
  • Select Install zip from Sdcard
  • choose the zip file 
Once these operations are performed its all done..  Choose option to restart your phone.

Once restarted you should be able to see an application names SU / SuperUser.


THAT'S IT YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY ROOTED YOUR PHONE.


1 comment:

Surya said...

Good explanation for 'Rooting'
Thanks, GSM Module devices