Support Sunday: How To Root Your New HTC Hero Safely And Why You Want To

I know posts have been a little quiet lately but there is little happening this time of year and I always try to only post relevant news. This however is relevant and important. Many of you are most likely going to unwrap an Android phone this year. And for a couple of days you’ll have lots of fun.

However, you are going to quickly learn that you handset is limited. Yes, I know it has great specs and does amazing things, but you’ll realized you’ve been locked out of certain features and add-ons. Now the “people” will have you think that this is for a good reason… so you don’t break anything. And maybe they are right in certain respects but my experience has proven that if you read, read and read again, then follow each step closely, this is a walk in the park.

It’s not so scary!!

I’ll be straight up.. I was scared to do this to my lovely new HTC Hero. I have flashed plenty of windows mobile handsets 100′s of times. I’ve unlocked some of the most difficult handsets and forced upgrades on renationalized phones. But, I thought, what if I muck up.. ah.. my phone!! But then, I remember that this is what is fun and said SO WHAT!! Well that was all for nothing.

First of all, what does it mean to root your phone? Its akin to having a Windows desktop and not having administrator privileges. Yes, you know what that’s like – frustrating!! Rooting allows you full rights over everything and means you can install anything.

Why would you do this?

• Because you can
• Because its most likely still stuck on 1.5
• Because you can use other software like Market Enabler
• Because HTC’s stock ROM sucks after ten minutes and slows down so much

This is the most important tip: BACKUP!

Nandroid is a fantastic piece of software for backing up everything. A Nandroid restore puts the handset back to EXACTLY the state it was in before you flashed a new ROM. So if you don’t like the new ROM, then ten minutes later, its like you never touched it. I’ll explain later how to do this.

Although the rest of this information is based on my personal experience, I got all my help from theunlockr.com who did an article on this very subject.

First – Watch this video but note the change in the instructions from step 6.

Second - Go back and watch the video if you didn’t already! I mean it!

Third - follow these steps:

I. Read Before You Begin

1.This ONLY works on the HTC Hero and the Sprint Hero!
2. Also, if you have already Rooted your HTC Hero without using the  1 click method, then do one of the quick unrooting procedures before beginning to start fresh. Head to their site for more info on this.
3. Your Hero MUST be on Cupcake to proceed, use the Magic unrooting process to get to a fresh cupcake install!
4. IF YOUR HAVE FIRMWARE 2.73.x.x OR ABOVE, PLEASE USE THIS PROCEDURE HERE BEFORE YOU DO THIS ONE.
How To Downgrade Your Hero (So It Can Be Rooted)

II. Let’s Get Started

1. On your phone, goto Settings, Applications, and make sure Unknown source is checked ON.

2. On your phone, goto Settings, SD card and phone storage, and click Unmount SD card.

3. Then click Format SD card (it should automatically remount after this).

4. Plug the phone into the compuer via USB, then pull down the notification bar and click on the SD card notification. Then click mount.

5. Download this APK and recovery image and save it to your computer:

FlashRec.apk (Updated 09/26/2009)
Amon Ra’s Hero Recovery Image (Updated 11.18.09)

6. UPDATE: Do NOT follow the video instructions from this point on (use them as a visual aid only!) We have recplaced the Cyanogen Recovery Image with the Amon Ra one so when it says anything about the Cyanogen Recovery Image, just ignore that and put the Amon Ra one in it’s place. This is VERY IMPORTANT when typing into the FlashRec program. You will NOT be typing what is written in the video, type what is written here in this procedure instead!

7. Save both the Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.2.img and the FlashRec.apk to your computer, then copy them both to your SD card (do NOT put them inside any folders on the SD card, just put them on the SD card itself).

8. Unplug the phone from the computer once they are downloaded to the SD card.

8. Goto the Market and download Linda File Manager or any file manager program if you do not already have one.

9. Open the file manager and goto SDCard and then find the FlashRec apk file and click it. If asked tell it to use Package Installer to open it. It should automatically install the apk.

10. Open the FlashRec program and click on Backup Recovery Image and wait for it to finish.

11. Once done, click on the empty text box in the FlashRec program and type (again remember we have replaced the recovery image from the one in the video so type what is written here, NOT what is written in the video!):

/sdcard/Recovery-RA-HERO-v1.2.3.img

Then click on the Flash Custom RecoveryImage button and wait for it to finish.

12. Turn off the phone and turn it on into Recovery mode by holding down Home and Power to turn it on (keep holding until the recovery screen comes up has a bunch of text on a black background). So long as that screen comes up, you have done it correctly and can now go on to the How to Load a ROM video for your appropriate device!

13. To get Root access you MUST go to the next video mentioned above and load a custom ROM.

Okay… so that wasn’t so hard… but what now… Well you need to get hold of a decent ROM.. I am using the Eclair 2.1 ROM from here and it is really fast and superb. But when you get to the stage of turning off your phone and pressing Power + Home to get to the recovery menu, MAKE SURE YOU RUN NANDROID.

Once you’ve done that, then flash away.

Please note this disclaimer: I am not responsible in any way if you damage your handset. I have pointed out that this is easy to do, however I have a lot of experience with this stuff. I offer no warranty whatsoever on this information. I am happy to answer any questions you have on this. Have fun.

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