I. Before You Begin

1. This should work on all MyTouch Slides, even after the latest OTA.

2. This will give you root access and a custom recovery image so you can begin flashing custom ROMs if you want.

3. IN ORDER TO GET FULL ROOT ACCESS (LIKE ACCESS FOR ROOT REQUIRED APPS ETC) YOU NEED TO COMPLETELY FINISH THIS PROCEDURE AND LOAD THE STOCK ROM W/ ROOT ACCESS.

II. Getting the Drivers to Work

1. Uninstall HTC Sync from your computer if you have it installed. Go to Start > Control Panel > Programs > Find HTC Sync and Uninstall it.

2. Download USBDeview to your computer.

USBDeview

3. Right click the USBDeview program and select Run As Administrator (if on Windows XP you can just double click it)

4. In the USB Deview program, click on Description at the top to sort by description. Search for all the T-Mobile MyTouch Slide drivers and right click each one (if there is more than one) and select Uninstall Device on each one. There should be no MyTouch Slide drivers left in the list when your done.

5. Download PDANet for Android

PDANet

6. Install it with the phone NOT plugged in at first. Follow the PDANet Installation prompt and it will ask you what manufacturer (choose HTC) and then it will tell you to go on your phone to Settings > Applications > Development > and make sure USB Debugging is checked ON. Then plug in the phone and it should automatically install the drivers (including our hard to install ABD driver).

III. Setup the Android SDK

1. Follow our How To Setup ADB procedure and once you can see your phone’s serial number come back to this procedure and continue.

IV. Load the Exploit to Root the Phone

1. Make sure the following Settings are correct on your phone.

Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging ON
Settings > Applications > Development > Stay Awake ON
Settings > Connect to PC > Charge only
Settings > Wireless & Networks > Wifi unchecked

2. Plug your phone into your computer via USB cable and select Charge Only for connection type.

3. Download the Rooting Files

MyTouch Slide Rooting Files (Updated 01.12.11)

4. Unzip the file and then copy all of the files into the tools folder of the Androidsdk (so they are inside the same folder as the adb.exe folder).

5. Open a command prompt by typing cmd and hitting enter in the Start menu search bar on your computer.

6. In the command prompt, type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line (the myroot command will take a while and appear frozen, just let it sit, don’t touch it):

cd\
cd c:\AndroidSDK\tools
myroot
adb shell
cd /sqlite_stmt_journals
chmod 0755 exploid     (the 0755 is a zero not an oh)
./exploid

7. After that last command, on your phone, turn on the Wifi, then turn it back off.

8. After that, focus back on the command prompt on your computer and type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

./exploid

9. It should prompt you for a password, enter “secretlol” (without the quotes). If it does NOT ask you for a password start from the beginning of Section IV and redo.

10. After it accepts the password, type the following into the command prompt with hitting enter at the end of each line:

cd /data/local
chmod 04755 *     (the 04755 is a zero, not an oh)
/data/local/flash_image misc /data/local/mtd0.img      (the mtd0.img is a zero not an oh)

V. Put The Stock ROM with Root Access on the Phone

1. With the phone still plugged in, pull down on the notification bar and select Disk Drive so we can transfer files to the sd card.

2. Download the Stock ROM with Root Access and save it to your computer:

Stock ROM w/ Root Access

3. Copy the ROM .zip file (do NOT extract it, leave it as a .zip) to the root of the sdcard of the phone (NOT in any folders, just on the sd card itself).

4. Unplug the phone.

VI. Flash the Engineering SPL

1. Turn off the phone.

2. Turn the phone back on by holding down Volume Down and Power (keep holding until the bootloader screen comes up).

3. It should automatically find the ESPRIMG.zip file that the myroot command in the last procedure put on your sdcard. It will ask you to update, press Volume Up to start.

4. Once it finishes, it will ask you to reboot, DO NOT REBOOT!

5. Push Volume Down instead to get back to bootloader.

6. On the bootloader screen, press Volume Down and then Power to select Recovery from the menu.

7. When it boots to recovery (triangle will be on the screen), hold Volume Up and Power for a second for the menu to come up.

8. Then hit Volume Down and Power to select Apply update.zip

9. You will then be booted into ClockworkMod Recovery. STAY IN RECOVERY MODE AND CONTINUE TO THE NEXT SECTION!

VII. Flash the Stock ROM w/ Root to Finish the Rooting Process

1. Now, while still in recovery from the last procedure, select Wipe Data/Factory Reset in recovery mode then select Yes to confirm.

2. Now, select install zip from sdcard and then select the Slidemeroot2.zip file and click yes to confirm.

3. Once it is done flashing, you have root access!

4.(Optional) If you want to load a different custom ROM, then head to our next procedure:

How To Load a Custom ROM on the HTC MyTouch Slide

Thanks to NBetcher!
Thanks to ChiefzReloaded!

Reported Issues:

Issue: The ESPRIMG.zip file says it is corrupted or won’t flash when I try to flash it.

Solution: Download this ESPRIMG.zip file and manually put it on the root of your sd card overwriting the one that the procedure automatically put on there (not in any folders, just on the sd card like you did with the Stock ROM in Section V). Then continue with the procedure and flash that one.

ESPRIMG.zip (Thanks to Violet for sending this in!)