I recently purchased an old T-Mobile Nexus One from a friend as I am looking to move to T-Mobile in the near future. In spite of this phone being released almost 18 months ago, it is still a friggin’ awesome phone! It runs smoother than my Droid X and seems to be much more stable. I guess that is a benefit of being a Google flagship device where the updates all come direct from Google. A quick revisit to the Google Phone page that originally only sold the Nexus One direct to consumers now shows fifty-four (54) different Android phones and Six (6) Android tablets; a lot has changed in the last year and a half. :)
When I received the phone it was in it’s original state with Gingerbread 2.3.3 installed. I played with it for a few hours, installed the 2.3.4 update- and then decided to root it. :)
These instructions are for a Windows system.
1st step is to void the warranty by unlocking the bootloader:
1. Download and install the Android SDK from Google. You will need to install the Java Development Kit (JDK) for your system to execute the SDK setup (it will tell you if you don’t have it). When you first run the SDK Manager, it will mark several items for download- if you are an actual developer then you will probably want to download all of these. Otherwise you will only need the USB drivers (both regular and Google), the SDK tools and the SDK Platform Tools.
2. Download fastboot and put it in the folder containing the ‘AdbWinApi.dll’- most likely this will be under a folder called \platform-tools found under the main path where the Android SDK is located. (This is created when the SDK Platform Tools module is downloaded in the prior step.)
3. Put the Nexus One into fastboot mode by powering down and holding in the roller ball when you power back up. You should get a white screen with three skating androids across the bottom. When you plugin your phone via USB the phone should indicate ‘fastboot’ in the screen. If not, check that the USB/phone drivers were detected properly in device manager.It is now time to go to a command prompt…
4. From the command prompt, navigate into the \platform-tools folder. From here, execute the command:
fastboot devices
If all the files are in the correct place and the USB drivers are installed properly your Nexus one should be listed.
5.Next, type:
fastboot oem unlock
This will bring up a confirmation screen on the phone. You must use the volume up/down buttons to move and power button to select. Note: selecting yes will invalidate any warranty you have on this phone and will reset the phone to factory settings- i.e. it will erase the phone and start you over with the android setup screen on next boot!
Change the recovery image and apply the root patch.
1. In the phone, go into Settings –> Applications –> Development and enable ‘USB Debugging’ (this will be needed for testing much later). When you plug the phone in you may need to specify another device driver from the \usb_driver folder if Windows does not automatically find the correct driver (it may be show a ‘Nexus One’ under Unknown Devices if the driver is not correct).
2. Download the su-signed zip and save it onto the MicroSD card of your phone.
3. Download the Clockwork recovery image and save it into the \platform-tools directory on your computer. In this case, the image is called ‘Clock.img’. If you use a different recovery image, the information in the next step should be changed to reflect the proper name.The phone will reboot and you will have root access. The Superuser application will be present in the applications list.
4. Boot the phone into bootloader mode by holding in the scroll ball while pressing power.
4. Back to the command prompt and navigate to the \platform-tools directory. Type the following
fastboot flash recovery Clock.img
fastboot boot Clock.img
5. The phone should reboot into Clockwork recovery. Select ‘update from ZIP on SD card’, select the su-signed zip and confirm the update. The update should go fairly quick.
6. use the power button to go back to the main menu. Select ‘reboot device’ and press power again.
To verify that everything installed correctly, make sure your phone is plugged into USB and unlocked with USB debugging enabled. From the command prompt under the \platform-tools directory, run:
adb shell su
A superuser request should pop up on the phone screen. if you accept, your su will run and the shell prompt will change from ‘$’ to ‘#’ to indicate root access.
