How to Root (and Unroot) the T-Mobile Sidekick 4G
If you go back a few years, the Sidekick would have been on the top of every teenager’s Christmas wish list. Now, the popularity of this device has taken a downturn and the last iteration in the Sidekick series, the Android-powered Sidekick 4G, did not live up to its predecessors’ success. For those who bought this device though, flashing custom ROMs might make the device interesting for a bit longer and to flash custom ROMs, it needs to be rooted before anything else. So read on then if you want to root your T-Mobile Sidekick 4G.
I. Before You Begin
1. Back up everything you feel is important.
2. Make sure that your device is at least 75% charged before you proceed.
3. Install the necessary drivers for your Windows PC to recognize your device beforehand so you don’t run into problems during the procedure. If you haven’t already done so, install them using the links provided in the next section.
II. Necessary Downloads
1. SuperOneClickv2.3.3-ShortFuse.zip [Download link available here]
2. Samsung USB Drivers 64 bit | 32 bit
III. Rooting the Sidekick 4G
1. Extract SuperOneClickv2.3.3-ShortFuse.zip to a folder on your desktop.
2. Enable USB Debugging on your device. To do this, go to Menu > Settings > Applications > Development and tick the USB Debugging checkbox.
3. Enable installation of apps from unknown sources. Go to Menu > Settings > Applications and tick the Unknown sources checkbox.
3. Connect your device to your PC and if there are any drivers being installed at this point, let Windows 7 do so.
4. From the folder you extracted above, run SuperOneClick.exe.
5. Click on Root.
And you’re done!
IV. Unrooting the Sidekick 4G
1. Follow the same steps as in Section IV until Step 4.
2. Click on Unroot.
V. Flashing Custom Recovery (Optional)
If you would like to flash a custom recovery image in order to flash custom ROMs, head to the next procedure to learn how to do that.
If this procedure helped you please thank/donate to the original developers 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.
I’m running SuperOneClick v2.3.3.0, but every time I hit “root,” the program will “Kill the ADB Server” just fine, but then when it starts the ADB Server, it says “daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037” then says “daemon started successfully,” but then the program quits responding.
Any ideas as to what’s going on?
Turn off any and all antivirus you have on your computer, re-download SuperOneClick, and try again. Your antivirus software will detect the files are malicious and quarantine them, so you will be missing files needed to root your phone.