Droid X can now be counted among the rooted (update: video!)
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted July 22nd 2010 9:14AM
posted July 22nd 2010 9:14AM
It's recently come to our attention that Birdman over at the AllDroid.org forums has rooted the Droid X. By all accounts (which, at the time of this writing, consists of two forum posts that exclaim "it works!") things are going beautifully, so what do you think? Ready to pierce the soft underbelly of your smartphone's OS? Been dying to get a hot session of ADB going? Hit the source link, and remember: if you brick your phone, you only have yourself to blame.
Update: We've added a video of the process after the break. Thanks, Steven!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: We've added a video of the process after the break. Thanks, Steven!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
But is NAND unlocked? That's more important that root.
@JohnnyRocketpants
While I have yet to do it myself. I don't comment on it with out reading. So. RTFA
@JohnnyRocketpants
Root is good for Wifi Hotspot, Titanium, AdFree, etc, but you're right about NAND. You gotta be able to flash roms for the best Android experience IMHO.
@TareG
While that would be nice they will still have to combat that efuse.
@TareG That's hysterical.
@JohnnyRocketpants Except that root is pretty much a requirement to get there in this case and root still allows for a WHOLE LOT of modding as things currently stand.
@devildrifterx "Combat efuse"? Why, because it's going to "make the phone blow up"? Seriously, I thought that fear-mongering news that P3 spread was shut down a long time ago. Nothing will "blow up". We just need to either have a properly signed bootloader, or find a way around it. It WILL happen. Too many people are interested in this device.
@TareG
Do you even have a phone with MotoBlur on it? I'm sure more than half the people complaining about it are ones who have never even used it.
@JohnnyRocketpants
Custom roms Custom roms Custom roms Custom roms
@JohnnyRocketpants
Why the hell is a supposedly open platform locked down? Its just Apple all over again.
Damn these guys are fast. I love the Android community. :-) Great work everyone.
@JXCGunrunna
I'm sorry, but this "open" platform gimmick has gone too far. Its just another locked down proprietary system. Its evil. Google should have made it GPLv3 so that you cannot put secret signatures required to boot a ROM.
@JXCGunrunna
Now all you have to do is water it to grow.
@Kurian
wow dude stop being an ass and look at the facts, it is open
@Kurian This is Motorola's doing, NOT Android/Google's. Learn the difference.
It always annoys me when engadget does these frightening warnings about bricking phones. Your readership is better educated than that. No need for the overly stated cautions.
@Bobbo
My guess is their lawyers tell them to say stuff like that...
@Bobbo They have to so they aren't blamed and held responsible. They all do it, meaning bloggers and developers. They aren't trying to scare anybody, they just won't take chances is all. Perfectly understandable.
And here gizmodo was all up in a tizzy/up in arms that Moto was going to brick phones that were rooted.
@Rick James I think unlocking the bootloader is what would cause the eFuse to set off, I could be wrong.
Like other stated NAND unlock and bootloader unlock != root
@labrat No, unlocking the bootloader doesn't "set off" efuse. Flashing an improperly signed bootloader will cause efuse to prevent the phone from booting properly and it will go into recovery where a proper bootloader can be flashed.
@rainabba thx for the clarification. It does make sense and is inline with what I read...
@Rick James
lol @ singling out Gizmodo. please. read the comments in engadget's first post about Moto's lock on the Droid X
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/motorola-responds-to-droid-x-bootloader-controversy-says-efuse/
not to mention Chris calling Moto's decision "nonsense"
@Rick James
actually no, rooting the phone just unlocks it so you are basically given special permissions to the phones hardware, stuff that you normally can't get through the OS. it has nothing to do w/ changing the bootloader, which is what the efuse is there to protect. the bootloader is basically what WOULD be changed if you wanted to load a custom ROM. u know, a cyanogen or something, or maybe something to get rid of moto's pseudo motoblur, and maybe load up htc sense instead.
another one bites the dust.... iv been considering flashing my Evo but iv been lazy. Congrats DroidX users newer clean roms await...we all understand stock roms suck.
@neeko18
Roms need the bootloader unlocked too.
First person to decrypt the bootloader get the honor of me having their babies
@DefPoet - The guy will probably be 15, so its a strange proposition!
@Marko Probably be even weirder if DefPoet is a dude.
@DefPoet
Deal.
More proof that the Phandroid Army cannot be stopped
@216 So say we all.
I thought this was the phone that would "destroy itself" if tampered with... hmm, guess not, but that's obviously a very good thing.
@bahoo
root != custom rom
@drange Why do you post false information? The bootloader still requires digitally signed roms. Something nobody has figured out since the milestone has come out.
@4u2nv
Besides looking up the meaning of the word 'fragmentation', you might also want to lookup the meaning of the operator '!='. Hint: it does not mean 'equals'.
Why doesn't the Captivate get any love at Engadget? The phones been out for 4 days, was rooted on the first, and Engadget hasn't even posted its review yet, let alone offered coverage of the dev community...
@sn1per
They didn't review the Vibrant yet either. Maybe they're waiting for all 4 Galaxy S phones to release and then they'll do one giant super review.
@Guys
Has there been any custom Stock Rom for the Vibrate or Captivate or Original one without touch wiz? Thanks
@sn1per
It's called Kies and it's a desktop program that syncs your phone's contacts and calendars with Outlook, lets you download media and text messages off your phone, lets you tether the Captivate/Vibrant as a modem, and it reformats videos on your computer for your phone.
http://www.samsung.com/ae/consumer/mobile-phones/mobile-phones/infotainment/GT-I9000HKDXSG/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=support
This is news worthy.
@Zylam A developer named Koush just made a recovery for them... so soon enough they'll see roms.
The ClockworkMod Recovery dev got a Captivate, and he's going to be releasing CMR for Captivate this week. A member of the XDA-developers forum has also posted a system dump of the unrooted phone, so its really only a matter of time before cyannogen mod is running on a Captivate.
@sn1per Samsung encrypted the Galaxy S drivers. So if you want a custom ROM, it has to be based on a official Galaxy S ROM. You can't just start with a clean AOSP build, like how I think Cyanogen does with v.6 of their Froyo ROM.
I really like the Epic 4G but chose the EVO 'cause I'm afraid that Samsung will drop support of it after their Froyo update (which can mean no =
@sn1per
I got the Captivate on launch day and this is indeed the fastest android phone ive owned (and owned several). The root works fine too.
Well back to the post, rooting and unlocking the bootloader are two different things.
@DefPoet
People still use Outlook? ;^)
@EggoEspada and all
ok thanks for the info guys, stilling mulling over the humming bird, just want stock Android really bad. Thanks! Later
Can someone explain how rooting is different than jailbreaking? Are they just different terms for the same thing?
@Shalabi its pretty much the same thing.
Its just for android its not jailbreaking i think because google doesnt really care what you do with the code, while apple does.
@Shalabi
I can't speak to the technical differences between rooting vs. jailbreaking, but the practical result is the same: You get to run a "custom" operating system on the phone. Jailbreaking gets more attention (and it's own special term) only because Apple has such a tight control over the OS + hardware, but from my perspective, there's very little difference between jailbreaking and rooting. Note, there's also "unlocking" which is the same regardless of the platform and is simply a term used when you break a phone away from a single carrier.
@Shalabi
As far as I can tell:
Android phones don't have a pre-existing jail. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't require ROOT access.
Rooting basically means having access to the 'root' user account in Linux.
The root password for the iPhone was discovered 3 days after its release using a 'strings' command. It didn't help much though.