How To: Root a Donut Phone (Android 1.6)
October 15, 2009 in Featured
Ok, just to make this a little easier for everyone I figured I would do a video of how to root a stock Donut phone from beginning to end (all the steps are already on the site but I figured I would put them together in one post to make life easy).
I. Get Back to Cupcake
Most of the procedures entail either putting the IMG.nbh file on the sd card and booting into bootloader and flashing it OR connecting the phone via HTC Sync to the computer and running an RUU to get back.
II. Root The Cupcake Phone with One Click Procedure
All of the 1 click rooting procedures are putting the Flashrec.apk file and a recovery image on the SD card, installing Flashrec and then using it to flash the new recovery image. You WILL NOT have internal root access after this procedure (it only allows us external root access from recovery) so you MUST goto the next section to finish.
III. Load a Custom ROM
All of these procedures consist of partitioning the SD card then putting a ROM on the SD card and then loading the ROM. In the case of the G1, you also have to update the radio and SPL (if you do not have the current version, if you do then do NOT load them again).
hoovnick said on March 21, 2010
Dear UnLockr:
Since the HTC Eris is similar to the Magic/MyTouch, will the downgrade procedure work if I have downloaded the 2.1 leak for the Eris?
ralph said on April 8, 2010
Hi I recently tried rooting my g1 running 1.6 but had many of the previously listed issues that other users were having. Particularly problems with the radio install. At this point I just want to get the phone back to factory and let the T-mobile updates take it back up to cupcake. I successfully took it back to RC29 per your procedure (thank you!) but when the phone said it was ready for updating this morning the update failed and the phone is still at rc29. I then tried your update procedures to take it up to donut and then cupcake but failed. After bring the phone back to rc29 I did the one touch root. Is this what is preventing the update from installing correctly? Should I try rc29 again and not do the one touch root. is there a way to undo the one touch root with out having to do the rc29 backup again. It took many tries to get the rc29 file to take before getting past the rainbow screen and the error 10 message.
HUSSNAIN said on April 14, 2010
Well hello there mate i m getting big trouble wid my g1..its DRC92 …dont know that is it Us or Uk version and other thing is that i m updated to unroot 1.6… and got some keyboard problem like when i type
y it type y9
0 it type 60
is this my fone problem or the os problem
Reji said on April 15, 2010
I am trying to downgrade my mytouch running 1.6 to 1.5 in preparation for rooting it, but I can’t seem to get the sappimg.nbh file on the megaupload site (site says that the file was removed and I don’t see any letters/numbers to type in in the top corner, like a previous thread states). Yesterday I searched for this file at other sources and almost picked up a virus on my PC.
Can someone point me at a definitive URL for grabbing that file, please?
TheUnlockr said on April 15, 2010
Reji,
Thanks for letting me know the link was down. Reuploaded it and changed the link, try again.
theezy said on April 23, 2010
when i hold the end key and camera key the red green blue white screen comes up it says
dre100 pvt 32b
hboot-0.95.000
cpld-4
radio-2.22.23.02
sep 2 2008
it goes to a white loading screen says “no image file”. then goes back to colored screen and says serial0 in then middle of the screen
TheUnlockr said on April 23, 2010
Theezy,
You need to format your sd card to fat32, then try again.
theezy said on April 24, 2010
how do i format my sd card to FAT32?
jedi said on May 25, 2010
FYI megaupload’s ‘ADS’ tried to give me a trojan. isn’t there a better site to upload the files to? pretty sure rapidshare is a much less bunk approach.
plus i cant download from megaupload on the phone.
marc said on May 27, 2010
hi! having european htc dream g1 with 1.6 software. when trying to “downgrade” i always get the “not allowed” message in the rainbow screen and that’s it. tried the fat32 thing, re-downloaded the files, tried starting update.zip from the generic bootloader: all of it does not work. after 3 hours of trying and reading in fora i am sick and tired. i used to have a nicely rooted g1, now after recieving an refurbished device, i cannot root it anymore. sucks! thanx for help!
Roberto said on June 15, 2010
IHavee a Brand New Tmobile G1, it came with 1.5 but than I uprgraded to 1.6, but I was wondering does this method still work on my g1? And what are the pros and cons of the rooting the g1? Will it break my phone or mess it? And will I still be able to use 3G data, phone calls, texting and browsing when rooted and using a custom roms?
TheUnlockr said on June 15, 2010
Roberto,
Yes it works but look for the updated version of the procedure on the site (just easier to understand).
no it will not mess up your phone and yes all features including 3g will work (check the ROM you want to use though for know issues using that specific ROM like no Bluetooth etc).
Good luck!
Joop said on June 25, 2010
Sad that it requires a downgrade to 1.5 since that doesn’t work without a GoldCard (and I don’t know if that will work because I refuse to go through that mess).
Wish someone would focus on a 1.6 root and leave 1.5 in the past.
David Cogen said on June 25, 2010
Joop,
The issue is that the only way devs know how to root 1.6 is to downgrade to 1.5 where the there is an exploit for us to root with… Goldcard is actually pretty easy. Just follow our How To Create a Goldcard procedure on the site word for word. Shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Good luck!
Glen Currier said on August 29, 2011
the only problem with that answer dave, is that the revskills website is no longer operational…If I had the ability (in a short amount of time) I would endeavor to do it myself. But, as it stands, I lack the precise expertise…
DonJuan said on July 20, 2010
Every where that I’ve looked to download sappimg.zip, the .zip file is corrupt. I’ve downloaded it multiple times from several different sites. Any help there?
Purple said on August 5, 2010
Can’t seem to access steps 2 and 3. Is it just me?
Ido Deisuke said on August 8, 2010
I do all that is in the instructions but when i wanna install the spl it says:
E: no signature (5 files)
E: verification failed…
What did i wrong?
aceccy said on August 30, 2010
does this work on firmware 1.6?
y3kgin said on September 21, 2010
so you mean 1.6 can’t be rooted it’s self you have to use 1.5 if you want a rooted phone.
David Cogen said on September 21, 2010
Y3kgin,
No, you have to downgrade the G1 or MyTouch to 1.5 then root them then upgrade back to 1.6 or higher.
Cricket Chris said on October 22, 2010
I’m trying to figure out how to root my Zio android which is on donut, help me please. Thank you
salman said on November 16, 2010
PLEASE HELP ME…. i HAVE htc dream g1,,with 1.6,,its DRC92,,i downloaded da dreaimg.nbh file and put it in my sd card,,when i go into da bootloader,,it displays 3 colors den says checking..somthing else and then says NOT ALLOW**..den goes back to da 3 colours screen and says serial 10…wt to do please help..and i also tried to simply put in da cupcake rom,,wdot using da dreaimg.nbh file but when i try to update it it says installing updates and den says faild to install,,please help…I WOULD APPRECIATE THAT U TELL ME DA SOLUTION AT MY maiL ADDRESS.. maani94@gmail.com… hope to revieve ur mail as i dont use my pc more often but do check my mail regularly via my phone mail..please help..
AQEEL said on November 21, 2010
Could someone please tell me if this tutorial works with a mytouch 3g that came with android 1.6…PLEASE HELP ME
Darris said on December 20, 2010
what about a devour?
Arash Aliz said on February 4, 2011
Killing ADB Server…
OK
Starting ADB Server…
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
OK
Waiting for device…
OK
Pushing rageagainstthecage…
1464 KB/s (0 bytes in 585731.000s)
OK
chmod rageagainstthecage…
OK
Running rageagainstthecage…
ROOTED
Getting mount path…
/dev/block/mtdblock0
OK
Remounting system with read-write access…
OK
Pushing su…
547 KB/s (0 bytes in 26264.000s)
OK
Pushing superuser.apk…
1364 KB/s (0 bytes in 196521.000s)
OK
chmod su…
OK
Remounting system with read-only access…
mount: Device or resource busy
OK
and not rooted what is my problem
Ron said on February 8, 2011
hi i would like to root my acer e120 android 1.6? Can i use mytouch unroot process? Thanks
mubeen ejaz said on February 22, 2011
PLEASE HELP ME…. i HAVEGOOLE G1,,with 1.6,,its DRC92,,i downloaded da dreaimg.nbh file and put it in my sd card,,when i go into da bootloader,,it displays 3 colors says checking.. and then says NOT ALLOW…den goes back to da 3 colours screen and says serial 10…wt to do please help..MY EMAIL mobi_zaje@ymail.com
Brandon said on February 22, 2011
would this work on a htc tattoo?
Hazel-Mic Jose said on August 21, 2011
is this still working and can this procedure flash the cyanogenmod7 rom? pls reply..
thank you and more power..
Hazel-Mic Jose said on August 21, 2011
will this work in HTC TATTOO?