Rooting HTC Desire S, HBoot 2.02, JB 4.1, S-ON

It very old now to start with and there is ocean of info on this in Google and XDA. I’m still hoping that people will read this blog also.

I became aware with concept of rooting when i saw phone with MIUI rom and wondered why do i still call myself as tech savvy when i have the same old rom from past an year and half.

So i decided to give it try. Altough i was worried about the phone, the warranty, what if it bricks.

Anyways i gathered up the courage and started MISSION ROOTING. After 2 weeks of struggle and sleepless, worrisome nights i finally installed cynogen 7.2 in my mobile. I found it bit irritating to browse through different pages and collating data. Drinking hot cup of coffee, installing rom(reaper v1.4) and doing office work i find a lil time to breathe in which i will start writing down the steps on how i rooted my mobile desire saga

Before going to details lets start with basics

Rooting is nothing but giving root access to user or a program. To root is to give read and write permissions for all the files of android system (try copying android folder from your sdcard to your computer. you will not be able to. thats cause you donot have read and write permisions in other words your phone is not rooted)

Here’s rooting in a nutshell: Rooting is what you need to become the administrator or also known as superuser of your own device. With a root-enabled device, you have access to all system files and will be able to modify it at your own will. Manufacturers locked users from such access by giving them something like a guest account to prevent anyone and any app that may compromise your device from having root access

Read A Look Into: Android Rooting for more Info

Rooting involves 2 things for HTC devices. Unlock boot loader and achieving s-off(for HTC devices)

Once these 2 are achieved you are good to go for custom rom installation

Its a pain going through various forums esp XDA. There are so many post u will definitely get lost. And people in XDA want you to read most of their forums reason being the more you read the more you understand. you have more clarity on what is what. Here is a nice video on rooting

What is rooting? esp for HTC Users

OK. so now we have basic understanding of what is rooting lets move on to initialization of installation

Before doing this lets discuss on ground rules

• I am not responsible for any faulty or bricked devices. These procedures usually work if you do it properly. However, Do it at your own risk
• Before starting this process please take a backup. I lost my data due to my ignorance.
• Nothing here but my experience on rooting and installation of ROM is original. I just a messenger 🙂

This is a step by step instruction on what to do and what did you just do. If you don wanna read the story just read all the line in italics and bold

Backing up the phone: Before even starting the process take a back up of all the apps and data

Here i will be telling you on what i did rather than what is best. You can backup data using various tools and procedures.

Download and install SuperBackup from Google play

After installation backup sms, contacts, apps.(calllogs,calender and bookmarks if you want)

After the backup proceed to step one of rooting

Note: Before starting take a backup of your phone data (sms,contacts, apps etc). The data will be erased when bootloader is unlocked

1. goto HTCDev/Bootloader and sign in (if u are already registered or register). In the pick list from right side select your device (if not listed the select other device and click on “Begin unlock Bootloader” and follow the instructions)

          Your rooting starts with this step. Here we are unlocking bootloader which is boot program of a rom. press vol down + power button and check for lock status. If your phone is new and unrooted the lockstatus is Locked. On unlock you can either switch between un-locked and relocked. Basically steps incolves agreeing on an a agreement and then a .bin file will be sent to your mail and with executing a set of adb commandsOnce unlocked you can proceed to next step

2. If you see the bootloader screen now it says Un-locked. Next is to Install recoveries like Unrevoked_Recovery,  ext4, clockworkmod (download anyone of these. I would recommend clockworkmod and rename the file to recoveryfile.img)

1. Download abd-fastboot.zip. Read this if interested.
2.  extract the zip folder and goto the extracted folder press shift and right click and click Open command window here
3. Paste the recoveryfile.img into the extracted folder and type the following commands
4.  adb reboot-bootloader (your phone will restart and will enter fastboot mode. Similar to pressing power + vol down and then selecting bootloader)
5.  fastboot flash recovery recoveryfile.img
6.  fastboot reboot (Keep your command Prompt Opened)
7.  Now install SuperUser Utilty and SuperBackup from Android market and using SuperBackup restore all the backups
8.  Now this might sound stupid but i din’t find another way of simplifying the idea of backup. Install Titanium Backup and backup all the data. Read this. Also create a update.zip file

Note: It always good have backup at this point

all you have to do is switch off your mobile and then hold power+vol down till boot menu appears. select recovery->backup and restore-> backup

Once this is completed you can always restore by going to recovery->backup and restore-> restore-> select the restore file

if your phone is on and you want to directly goto recovery screen just type in cmd adb reboot recovery

3. Backup and Bottloader unlock is done. Next target is to achieve S-OFF.

This is the most serious and irritating part of Process. there is no one command or single process to downgrade hboot 2.0* to hboot 0.98. There are couple of post in the internet which says rom can be installed with s-on. It did not work for me. So what i did is downgrade from hboot 2.02 to 0.98 and the S-OFF. I followed this guide.

• download main version low zip and transfer main version low” zip to your phones sd card

• Choose RUU which is ROM Update Utility. it’s a file that allows you to revert back to the stock recovery. Click here to get your RUU. Since i’m from India i donot have to worry about carrier. just search for keyword India. U will get 2 results 

• RUU_Saga_S_hTC_Asia_India_2.15.720.3 is with HBoot 2.00 and ICS

• RUU_Saga_hTC_Asia_India_1.47.720.1 is with HBoot 0.98 and Gingerbread. Choose this one for download

• After the download is complete click on downloaded exe. 

• check the “i understand” box to move on to the next screen

• hide the utility temporarily out of site

• search your C drive for “rom.zip”. you will find it in a temporary location(it will be in a different spot each time you run the utility). Or just type %temp% in run (win+r) and search for rom.zip

• open the folder location,and transfer rom.zip to the extracted zip folder mentioned in 2 point and 2nd subpoint 

• unhide and cancel the utility,youre done with it.

• Below steps is to downgrade Hboot version

• In command prompt type adb reboot recovery

• once in recovery,wipe cache and dalvik cache using the phones on screen menus. then flash the “set main version low” zip file

• reboot to bootloader using recovery menu options. u will get the fastboot screen (white screen,colored letters)

• type fastboot getvar mainver. This should return 1.00.000.0. if so,then procede

• then type fastboot oem lock. This will reboot the phone. when it finishes,re-enable usb debugging,select charge only mode

• then adb reboot bootloader. the phone will go back to bootloader mode

• type fastboot devices. If you get a serial number procede

• fastboot erase cache

• fastboot oem rebootRUU

• fastboot flash zip rom.zip. This will flash the downgrade RUU. if it fails with a pre-update error,dont panic. just run the above command again,and it will flash the rest,and finish this time.Be patient here,as it will take some time to send and check the large zip file,and it must pass several checks before the phone will allow it to flash. Once you see writing starting to flash in your cmd window,do not under any circumstance unplug or disturb the phone. doing so during the wrong partition update make casue an unrecoverable brick.once it finishes flashing and you have an “ok” in the cmd window

• fastboot reboot-bootloader. note that you now have revoutionary-rootable hboot 0.98.0000

• fastboot reboot

• Final step is to turn S-OFF with Revolutionary

• Goto revolutionary.io and then click on Download for Windows. while the file is downloading select your OS, device, HBoot Version and your serial number (type adb devices in cmd) and get the Betakey from betakey section of and extract the zip folder. click on revolutionary.exe(make sure your device is connected with with usb-debugguing enabled) and type betaKey (paste will not work here), Just wait and watch while the magic happen. after the process is finished congratulate yourself. you have achieved S-OFF

Note: I’m stressing this again. It always good have backup at this point also. if everything goes fine you can delete those backup.

all you have to do is switch off your mobile and then hold power+vol down till boot menu appears. select recovery->backup and restore-> backup

Once this is completed you can always restore by going to recovery->backup and restore-> restore-> select the restore file

if your phone is on and you want to directly goto recovery screen just type in cmd adb reboot recovery

4. Download the rom and Install

• Download the rom

• Copy the zip file on rom to ur sdcard

• goto recovery (either type adb reboot recovery or shutdown your phone, then power+vol down and goto recovery)

• Clear cache, factory data/dalvik cache(present in advance option)

• select install from zip using volume and power button

• after the installation select install from update.zip and after it is complete reboot your phone to find out how your new rom feels like

check this video for Rooting HTC

Happy rooting 🙂

If you feel something is missed please let me know(comment in the comment section)

If you want me to put some more info on anything or update/change the existing the instructions or if you know a better way of doing it do let me know by commenting in the comment section

Please feel free to give a feedback by comments and if you like it share it with your friends