Unrevoked: How To Root HTC Android Phones (EVO 4G, Desire, Droid Incredible)

Recently, the Android rooting community is seeing the One Click root trend, such as the Samsung Galaxy S root on Windows, and Mac OSX. Similar to this root, we now have a single click root for several HTC Android phones, including Spring EVO 4G (HTC Supersonic), Droid Incredible (HTC Incredible), HTC Desire, HTC Aria, Droid Eris (HTC DesireC), and HTC Wildfire (HTC Buzz).

Unrevoked, the one click root for HTC phones, started off as a root for HTC EVO 4G and now supports several other phones. For those who are still wondering whether to root, here are some of the reasons: you can get custom ROMs on your device, for instance putting HTC Desire ROM with the Sense UI on Nexus One, perform nandroid backups, lots of customization to the UI, enabling some features such as Tethering and so on.

Here is how you can root your HTC Android phone using Unrevoked.

Note: At this time, unrevoked3 does NOT work on stock Froyo (Android 2.2) phones. The current version of Unrevoked is 3, however due to some bugs they have taken it out and are currently offering only Unrevoked 2 for download. Windows users should install the HBOOT drivers.

A Note for Windows users

You need to install HBOOT drivers on Windows (steps given below). Also you need to uninstall HTC Sync, DoubleTwist or any other program that tries to access your device via USB. Simply disabling these applications will not stop them from interfering with the root process, so uninstall them completely before going ahead. Otherwise you may see ‘Waiting for system to settle’ message, hanging the program.

Install HBOOT drivers on Windows

1. Download the modified USB drivers for Unrevoked (link at bottom).

2. Reboot your phone into the HBOOT menu by holding the POWER and VOLUME buttons down.

On EVO 4G, you will have to select HBOOT USB at that menu by pressing volume down four times, then power. Wait until the screen flashes through an “SD Checking” message before pressing buttons; otherwise, the phone will ignore key presses.

3. Now connect your phone via USB cable to your PC. Wait for the HBOOT USB PLUG screen on your phone.

4. Open Device Manager on your PC. Go to Start Menu –> Control Panel –> Device Manager.

5. Under the Other devices, you will find your Android device. Right click on it and select Update Driver Software.

6. In the following dialog, select ‘Browse my computer for driver software’. Now select the driver software you downloaded and continue to install it.

7. Once the installation is complete, you should be able to find Android Bootloader interface listed under the newly added item Android Phone.

Unrevoked Root And Reflash

Simply download the program for your OS. Unrevoked3 is now available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.

Windows users, make sure you installed HBOOT drivers before you proceed with this tool.

The tool only unlocks the NAND flash sufficiently long to flash the custom recovery, ClockworkMod. Because of the mechanism that unrevoked2 uses, it is infeasible to leave it unlocked for longer. For this reason, the tool functions as a single unit–if any one part of it doesn’t work, the NAND flash may not even be unlocked! After the reflash tool finishes running, the phone’s hardware automatically relocks NAND flash.

Flash Custom ROM

If you want to flash a custom ROM, then you need the ROM’s .img file. This should be a binary file suitable for flashing, and not a .zip file. Note that your recovery partition will be inaccessible until a proper image is used to flash.

Download HBOOT Drivers

Here are the download links for Unrevoked 3 (v3.14 with ClockworkMod Recovery 2).

Download Unrevoked 3 For Windows

Download Unrevoked 3 For Linux

Download Unrevoked 3 For Mac OSX

Want to get the latest information and downloads? Go to Unrevoked website and choose your mobile phone, to download the latest firmware.