How To Root the HTC Sensation on HBoot Version 1.27.0000

If you happen to own a HTC Sensation smartphone running on the Android 4.0.3 ICS with HBoot version 1.27.0000 and looking for a simple a way to gain root access on it, then you have come to the right place. We have compiled all the required steps below to get you started with rooting the HTC Sensation to enjoy the happiness that most Android users are having with their rooted phones. Here you go:

I. Before You Begin:

1. Your smartphone must be running on Android 4.0.3 ICS with HBoot Version 1.27.0000

2. You must have unlocked bootloader of your device. You can do so from here.

3. The following procedure works on Windows based PCs only.

II. Downloading Required Files:

1. Fastboot

2. ClockworkMod Recovery Image (Download link’s given there next to the phone name)

3. Root Package (Download the ZIP file using the link given in the first post)

III. Installing CWM Recovery on the HTC Sensation on HBoot Version 1.27.0000

1. Download all the files mentioned above to the Desktop of your PC.

2. Extract files from the Fastboot package to your Desktop. You can use tools like WinRAR to do it.

3. Connect your smartphone to your PC using the USB cable.

4. Open a Command Prompt Window on the Desktop of your PC where adb.exe and fastboot.exe files are located. Right-click on any empty area on the screen while holding the Shift button on your keyboard, choose Open command window here option.

5. Type in the following commands in the Command Prompt Window to reboot your device into bootloader mode:

adb reboot bootloader

6. When your device enters the bootloader menu, choose fastboot option.

7. Rename the recovery file you downloaded from the above section to recovery.img. It helps us easily flash the recovery using fastboot.

8. Now, in the Command Prompt window you opened in earlier step, type in the following command:

fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

9. The recovery will be flashed on your device and you should see the confirmation on your screen.

10. Issue the following command using the same Command Prompt Window to reboot your device:

fastboot reboot

You have successfully installed the ClockworkMod Recovery on your device and now head on to the next section to root your device.

IV. Rooting the HTC Sensation on HBoot Version 1.27.0000

1. Connect your phone to your PC using the USB cable. Make sure that your phone is turned ON in the normal mode.

2. Copy the Root Package file to the root folder of your device’s SD card. Please do not put the file in any deep folder.

3. Open a Command Prompt Window on your Desktop and issue the following command:

adb reboot recovery

4. Your phone will reboot into the Recovery mode.

5. From the Main Menu of the Recovery, choose install zip from sdcard followed by choose zip from sdcard.

6. Select the Root Package ZIP file which you copied to your phone for flashing.

7. As soon as the rooting file is flashed, choose reboot system now from the Recovery menu.

Congrats ! Your HTC Sensation is now rooted. You now have the ability to install root-only apps as well as custom ROMs on your phone.

V. Flash a Custom ROM (Optional):

1. If you are ready to flash custom ROMs on your device, head to the next procedure to learn how to flash a Custom ROM on the HTC the Sensation.

If this procedure helped you, please thank/donate to the original developers here and here.

If you need help with this procedure, please ask in the comments below or in the forum.

This is part of our Android How To’s. We have how to’s on rooting, loading ROMs, and tons of other tips and tricks for your specific device or for Android devices in general! For all of our Android How To’s, head here.

83 thoughts on “How To Root the HTC Sensation on HBoot Version 1.27.0000”

  1. Can anyone please help me? Ive followed the instructions to unlock bootloader on my sensation (T-Mobile) and I’m stuck. I’ve gotten as far as where it ask me to type in this command in the command prompt “fastboot oem get_identifier_token” all i get is a message saying “waiting for device” and nothing more. What am i doing wrong or what step did I miss? Please help.

    1. it happened to me too… Try plugging into another usb port. Worked for me. Consider using a different usb cable. With all these usb versions, you never know…

      1. deepu shankar

        i am stuck in a very funny place .. unlcoking the bootloader :: this is what i get ! is there something wrong with my device ? i have tried 23 time ..

        C:Android>fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin

        sending ‘unlocktoken’ (0 KB)…

        OKAY [ 0.172s]

        writing ‘unlocktoken’…

        FAILED (remote: unlock token check failed)

        finished. total time: 0.234s

      1. deepu shankar

        i am stuck in a very funny place .. unlcoking the bootloader :: this is what i get !

        C:Android>fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin

        sending ‘unlocktoken’ (0 KB)…

        OKAY [ 0.172s]

        writing ‘unlocktoken’…

        FAILED (remote: unlock token check failed)

        finished. total time: 0.234s

  2. Great! Everything worked, however the clockworkmod website wouldn’t let me download the zip file so i had to download form somewhere else. One question though; don’t you need to “S-OFF” to install custom roms or is unlocking the bootloader enough??? :S

  3. When I type adb reboot bootloader it says error:device not found. Do you know what the cause of this could be?

    Nevermind! I forgot to check USB Debugging after I formatted the phone.

  4. Wow, I have been looking everywhere for this and I was about to give up. This is the only guide on the internet that shows you how to unlock a HTC Sensation with 1.27.0000
    Thank you so much!

  5. I have been agonizing over whether to root or not, and the ease of this method made it an easy choice. Thank you, great job!

      1. Sorry that I did not see your question before today. I hope you found CWM somewhere. I can’t remember where I grabbed it.

    1. Hey Brad,

      You’re supposed to rename “recovery-clockwork-5.0.2.0-pyramid.img” file to “recovery.img” (without quotes). This is not a necessary step as you can flash the recovery without renaming it, but in such case, you’ll have to type in the long name of the recovery image.

      Renaming makes it easier to call the file during the commands.

      Hope it helps!

  6. Thank you! After getting bamboozled by most rooting guides (which are poorly written and make very few concessions to anyone not familiar with the jargon), this was easy to follow and it worked! Putting all the required files on the Desktop so there’s no messing about with changing directories in the Command prompt was great. Some points for other newbies like me:
    – I found unlocking the bootloader through HTC a lengthy and intimidating process. You need to be very precise about copying the ‘token’ you get and have to paste into the site to get the unlock code, as including spaces at the beginning of the lines will stop it working.
    – Your phone must have USB debugging selected (Settings-Develop option) for the connection to work.
    – I uninstalled HTC Sync before starting as other websites had suggested this was a useful precaution to prevent any interference with the whole process.

    Now to see what I can do with a rooted phone!

  7. I am new to rooting and want to ask some questions.

    1. My firmware version is 3.33.720.6. Will this guide work for this version?

    2. Does this guide s-off the device as well?

    3. While unlocking the phone, htcdev presents a list of devices. My device is located in that list, but mine is Indian sensation. I don’t know what to select from the options. My sensation is a normal gsm phone purchased in India. So, which option should i select from those.

    4. I want to flash either cyanogenmod or virtuous inquisition. Will this guide work for these ROMs?

  8. How is anyone receiving their ‘Token Code’ from Htcdev? I get to part 10 and mail off my token ID and I never receive an email. I sent it to three different accounts just to make sure. I checked all spam folders just to make sure too. Is there any way other then Htcdev to unlock the bootloader?

    1. you get the token code from the command prompt window. It’s that long bit of text they tell you to copy. you paste it in the token code box in the next few minutes.

  9. Thanks for a great article. I can’t get past the first step. HTC Dev doesn’t work for me because my phone is a Telstra phone (Australia.) Anyone know another way to unlock the bootloader? Think I’ve tried about everything. Sad thing is, before my phone was repaired (drowned it in hot chocolate liquor) was nicely rooted, etc. Thought maybe it was the new bootloader (1.27.0000). So can anyone help me?

  10. its not working for me….after flashing the recovery i try to boot into the recovery from by using ‘adb reboot recovery’ but all i get is screen with htc written….i think its boot loop…..i have tried all steps correctly….plz help

  11. i made everything step by step. and its working pritty fine, but my wlan is not working anymore? is there anything i can do?

      1. try to rename the adb file in the initial location of > HTC > HTC sync 3.0 > adb.exe you can rename it like adb1.exe and then retry

  12. I have done everithing you sad for my htc sensation hboot 1.27 ICS 4.0.3, and then i flashed custom rom directly from recovery, not from rom manager like you sad, and now i have white htc screen and i am stack. What do i need to do. Do I need to install rom manager, and then to install custom rom from rom manager. My device is unlocked and s-on.

    1. Same here. I used the standard method for S-OFF or whatever, some time ago, and that worked. Flashing revoveries with adb seems to suceed, but when I run them either from the bootloader screen or with ‘adb reboot recovery’, I get a white screen of death (WSOD) with the green HTC letters. I have tried multiple recovery images, same thing. HTC Desire with HBOOT 1.27.0000 and ICS

  13. WOW I Feel obligated to reply to this!
    I just rooted my HTC Sensation via this method. Luckily, I got every single step done easily in first attempt.

    The htc unlock zip file does not extract 100% and give error on 5-6 files. And it does not get installed in c.

    All 3 files are under sdk>platform-tools

    But
    but but… you as well as HTC should give warning that all apps,
    settings, contacts and messages will be deleted and phone will be
    factory resetted. (SD Card is safe though)

    We get this warning at the final step of unlocking bootloader, this should have been the first
    warning so one may make a backup before going deep in the strange modes.

  14. Is there any similar guide how to root HTC Sensation Z710e (4.0.3, hboot 1.27.11111)? With all necessary files fit to 11111, not to 00000? And one more question – does this make S-off? And do I need to unlock bootloader using HTC Dev, first? Thanks for reply.

  15. when I enter “fastboot flash recovery recovery.img” in the command prompt it says that there is an image error.i renamed the zip file to recovery.img and made sure that it does not have two file endings like .img.zip.

  16. So, how are we supposed to do the S-off when the people at Unlimited.io have removed the controlbear.exe and don’t support Windows any more? This is asinine that we can’t do a root of our phone because the whole set of instructions from everyone who ever did this is well over a year old.

  17. deepu shankar

    i am stuck in a very funny place .. unlcoking the bootloader :: this is what i get !
    C:Android>fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
    sending ‘unlocktoken’ (0 KB)…
    OKAY [ 0.172s]
    writing ‘unlocktoken’…
    FAILED (remote: unlock token check failed)
    finished. total time: 0.234s

    Please help ……..

  18. Great, but when i get to the point where i have to open the command prompt window, I shift right click somewhere on the desktop, open it and it works. Then, when I type in a command, it tells me that the first word of the command is not recognised as a command. It would be really useful if you could attach screenshots to this post so we could see what it looks like 🙂

    1. Do you have adb.exe and fastboot.exe files on your Desktop? Make sure these files are present there on your Desktop and these are what the command uses to get the process done.

  19. Murphy Gayheart

    PLEASE I need some little help here please ‘My comand promt says adb is not recongnised as an internal or external command’..,,I’m on windows 7 VAIO….HEEELP

  20. A huge thank you! I’ve spent days triying to install recovery and root my Sensation and with your tutorial i managed to do so in less than 10 minutes! Thank you so much, you’ve rescued me from hell and brought me to ROM paradise ;0)

    1. Hey Nataly,

      We’re glad to hear that you successfully rooted your device using our guide!

      Keep coming back for more!

  21. Anyone having trouble with phone calls when running a custom rom? The sound quality is terrible and sounds robotic/tinny! I have tried 2 different roms (one cm based and one sense 4.0 based rom)! Apart from that, this is a great method!

      1. Thanks for the suggestions! I have installed both these apps and have tried playing with the settings for voice calls, but nothing has changed! Any suggestions on how to configure these apps?

        1. Soundabout should be pretty easy to configure, although I have never been able to properly configure (or know what to configure) on AlsaMixer.

  22. have anyone facing that kind of problem..? Please help me. Tq

    “C:UsersGITNDesktopFastboot>fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
    sending ‘recovery’ (2004 KB)… OKAY [ 0.606s]
    writing ‘recovery’… FAILED (remote: image error! (BootMagic check
    fail))
    finished. total time: 0.924s”

  23. dude your the best …..i had having a hard time on rooting since i bought it . But this guide was the most simple that i could find ….THANKS BRO.

  24. i did as you told here . then after that i flashed cm9 on my htc sensation , now it’s stuck at boot screen and nothing happeneing from there. you guide did’nt told us to have S-OFF now i’m stuck at this situation .

  25. Thnx man. It worked. If someone have a problem with adb driver or something, just kill the adb in task manager and try again.

  26. I have trouble getting to start…when I give the command ‘adb reboot bootloader’ I get a message device not found. Any help?

  27. After i I enter the “adb reboot bootloader” command i get “Error device not found”. I have don all the other steps before this and they have all worked fine. Please help. Great tutorial by the way 🙂

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