Forum

How To Root The LG Optimus or any Andriod phone
 

I have seem tons of posts about people wanting to root or having a hard time rooting an Android phone. I also see lots of people that have the LG Optimus by Virgin Mobile, including myself. I have spent half a sleepless night in trying to root the LG Optimus V, its a trick little phone to root.

This method works with version 2.1 and 2.2, its not tested on a Android version 2.3. But it might work on it, I'm just not sure.

Items Needed :

1. LG Optimus V or any Android phone
2. PC & USB Cable
3. SuperOneClick2.1 (rooting program)
4.The program requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0+ or Mono v1.2.6+

The Root :


Step 1.

Download SuperOneClick2.1

Step 2.

Put your phone on USB Debugging mode by ... Menu < Settings < applications < Development < USB Debugging

Step 3.

Plug in your Phone to your PC and let the drivers install automatically

Step 4.

Open SuperOneClick folder and run the adb once its finished open SuperOneClick it self

Step 5.

Click Root and wait for it to finish then reboot your phone and see if you have super user


Troubleshooting :

You NEED to put your phone on USB Debugging mode
You NEED to install make sure the Android drivers for your phone are installed
Make sure you DO NOT mount your SD card.
If you still can't get something to run, try doing it in recovery mode.


1. If you're having issues with "wait for device" or if RATC is looping, try this

Unplug your USB Cable
Go to Settings > Applications > Development
Uncheck USB Debugging
Plug in your USB Cable
Unplug your USB Cable
Check USB Debugging
Plug in your USB Cable

2. Other Tip :


I finally figured out how to root without looping. After rooting 13 phones, this is how I did it on the first try.

Turn USB Debugging OFF

Click Root

When it says: Waiting for Device, Turn USB Debugging ON

It'll now run RATC

When it says: Starting ADB Server...
Turn USB Debugging OFF
Turn USB Debugging ON
Turn USB Debugging OFF
All BEFORE it says "Waiting for device..." again


Or if your phone does not support this way, you can download "z4root" from the internet. Install it on your phone.

*This part came from my post from another thread.

***These two programs are FREE, no need to pay anything***

YOU CAN NOT FIND "z4root" IN THE ANDROID MARKET PLACE, GOOGLE IT.

1. find the program called z4root, it will root or hack your phone. i looked up your model and its running android 2.1. that is perfect cuz i don't think z4root runs on 2.3 yet.

2. install the z4root program on to your SD disk think. look up the program in your file manager folder. click on the left top button which takes you to the SD drive. the program might be in the folder "download". find the program and click to install it on your phone. it will ask you to install it, if you don't have the install from outside of the android market or 3rd party install, click on it.

3. once the program installs, go into location where there is tons on other programs, like the calender, calculator, blah blah. scroll all the way down into you find "z4root", click on that. it you ask you to temp or prema root your phone. ***temp. root- it roots your phone until you shut it off, ***prema root--its always rooted, even when you shut off your phone.
Give the program some time to root it, maybe a few min., depending on the speed of the processor. It might shut off your phone, don't worry that is normal.

4. find the program called "barnacle wifi tether" in the android market place. That program is sure there, or still is. install the program like any other android market program.

5. once the program install, click on the program to start it. when you start it, will will have a big "start" button. hit the button and check your laptop for the wifi connection named "barnacle". you can go into the program in the menu and change the name or have passwords so that only certain people can use it. just remember that when you start off your connection is an open connection and any one within range of your phone can and "will" use it.

HOW TO DO "AIRPLANE MODE"

1. press your phone's off button for a few seconds and a few option will come up. Click on the option of airplane mode, wait a few seconds until all cell phone connections shut off. (you will see a small thing up top that will let your know).

2. press your phone off button again for a few seconds. the same option will come up. press the "airplane mode" again to turn all cell phone connection or reception again.

3. check your new IP address with IPburger or any IP address website. do that before and after all of this.

Getting a new IP address will take less then 20 seconds, my phone take about 6 seconds total. And my phone is not the best in the world. Hope this helps out. Lots of parts are not capitalize cuz I am lazy.

***Don't forget to keep the phone charged into the computer using a USB or the actual charger. This will drain (kill) a battery within a few hours.

HAPPY ROOTING....

This might need to be in the Everything Else theard

OH....oops

I guess I was thinking that everyone uses this method for EB.

lol, I can root a phone in 4 seconds but I cant make my EB stealth accounts last longer then 30min. I think its the prepaid gift cards I have been using. But thanks for the account.

Nice post Yotano. Especially since this phone can now be found rampantly all over CraigsL i s t for as low as $50.

Don't sleep on this people.

thanks for the comment, wow $50, I bought this baby for $99 at best buy but new. I should have looked at CL first, oh well.

Yea, it's awesome. There is a new Optimus Slider coming to V-Mob so the Optimus V will be even easier and cheaper to come by.

Plus, no offense to people who actually use V-Mob as their personal dedicated service outside of EB and PP ste.alth and what not, but majority of people selling this stuff on CL are on meth/crack or welfare (at least in my city) so it's easy to get V-Mob phones for practically nothing.

What I'm looking for is a bigger screen phone but still pretty cheap. I really hate this 3.2 inch screen, its so small. But oh well.. I will wait and see what they have in the future.

Moto Triumph just dropped to $279 so that's an improvement. What I would look for is some kind of deal that pops up for Radio Shack and Best Buy at some point this holiday season. Those are the 2 major distributors for Virgin and there is always something going on with random offers from both. Some kind of discount program or a gift card offered that you can apply towards Virgin devices when buying something else.

Even you said the Optimus V was on sale for $100 when you picked it up and that's good enough for most right there. The Triumph is a gorgeous phone for the price and I bet you could find someone desperate to move it on CL for around $200.

Yea I picked it up for 99, then after that it was back to 149. I just checked the VM site and its down to 129. I like the Triumph with that 4.1 inch screen but the talk time is much less then the Optimus. I will stick with this phone for some time. I really want my next phone a dual core smart phone.

Great Detail method, thank Yotano211

If u go to: Xda-Develops.com

Look up ur phone or tablet and there's toms on there, unless ur just trying to Root (S- Off) some Roms will give u free wifi on ur phone for up to 8 devices which is usually a paid for service. what is V-Mob

V-Mob is Virgin Mobile, they are owned by Sprint and have very good prices on phones and phone plans, 35, 45, and 50/month plans. Their IP address' ranges are in the hundreds.

And thanks for the link to the Xda-Develops forums. I will check it out pretty soon. I'm kinda swamp with reading Amazon ghost (just bought it), selling on Amazon, work, and 3 college classes. Plus the headaches of EB, and I only sell on there using a friend's stealth account. My keep getting hit with ID verification within 30min of first auction posting. I think its the gift cards I used.

I am updating this thread to include Android 2.3 or Gingerbread for Android, the link is here [App] [26.04.2011][v1.2] GingerBreak APK (root for GingerBread) - xda-developers


NOTICE: Gingerbreak is an exploit that has been fixed in many of the latest Android versions and releases. If it does not work, it does not work. I can't "fix" the exploit, you will have to wait for a new exploit to come out, or root a different way!

About
The GingerBreak APK is a wrapper around the newly released GingerBreak exploit (credits to The Android Exploid Crew), which is meant to attain root access on GingerBread. This specific exploit may work on various Froyo and Honeycomb versions as well.

What the APK and exploit do is as follows:
- The APK puts the right files in the right place to run the exploit
- The APK runs the exploit
- The exploit attempts to attain root access
- If it succeeds, the exploit remounts /system as read-write and runs the installer script
- The installer script attempts to install the su binary and superuser APK, and reboots

Some important things to know:
- You must have USB debugging enabled on your device
- You need to have an SD card (formatted and) inserted - if it doesn't work, try formatting the SD card in your computer, or switching it with a different (or old, etc) SD card
- The APK must be installed to device, NOT SD card
- The exploit may take a while to run, but not more than 10 minutes, if it does, get me a logcat, and reboot the device. In rare occasions, even if the device does not reboot, you may still have root. So check that out after you manually pull battery after 15 minutes or so of being stuck.
- Always reboot between root attempts!
- While (temporary?) root access may be attained, due to locked bootloaders, efuses, S-ON, and whatnot this may still not work on your device. For temproot purposes, use the raw binary exploit (linked below), not this APK.
- The GingerBreak exploit should not be used to attain temproot and continue using the device. It fscks vold, you do not want to be running like that. You want to reboot! So if the root doesn't stick, you (still) have a problem.

Installation
- Optional: Press the Thanks button below this post
- Make sure USB debugging is enabled
- Make sure you have an SD card (formatted and) inserted
- Get the APK on the phone somehow, and install it
- Open the APK, press the root button
- Wait a few minutes. If there are no problems, the device will reboot (note that the reboot itself can take like 10 minutes due to cache wipe)
- Make sure the Superuser app is install and working
- Optional: Install BusyBox from Market (I personally prefer the stericsson installer)
- Optional: Uninstall GingerBreak, you don't need it on your phone anymore
- Optional: Make a donation

WARNING: Apparently on some devices the root exploit causes the SD card (internal or external) to be formatted. Also, if it gets stuck but you do see the card mounting/unmounting, try formatting your SD card yourself and try again (or use a different SD card) - often this works (a fix for both issues is being looked at)

NO IT DOES NOT WORK ON THE GALAXY ACE (yet ?)

WORKS ON A RARE SGS2, BUT NOT ON MOST (seems to be only pre-release devices that are rootable this way)

ACER A500 / ICONIA Look here (click). Will eventually be integrated, I guess

Donate
Donate to Chainfire by PayPal: click this link
Donate to The Android Exploid Crew by PayPal: 7-4-3-C@web.de

Report!
Please report back if it does or doesn't work on specific devices. If it doesn't, don't forget to post your logcat as attachment, and mention your device details and GingerBreak version.

Credits
- I made the APK and did some slight modding to the exploit code to install from an APK
- The exploit ("GingerBreak") itself is made by The Android Exploid Crew. Original code can be found here: http://c-skills.blogspot.com/2011/04...ngerbreak.html

Manual rooting
From v1.1 it is no longer possible to manually root the device over an ADB connection using the files from this APK. Please use the original binaries from the c-skills website to do this. There are several guides posted here on XDA about how to do this manually, some are mentioned/linked-to in the first few pages of this thread.

Note
GingerBreak is not specific to any device, but there is code in there that may not work on device X or Y. The exploit is generic, but that does not mean one size fits all, nor does it mean that there will be no firmwares out there that fix this exploit. A special version may need to be compiled for your device, ask your favorite hacker from your specific device's forum. This APK is meant to make the process easier, but also adds dependancies so that it may not work on your device.

AGAIN, THIS DOES NOT WORK ON S-ON DEVICES !

Changelog

26.04.2011: v1.2
- Removed some code that may break operation while the code itself isn't needed
- Added UnRoot option
- The APK now logs exploit output semi-live

22.04.2011: v1.1
- Modded exploit code to not need /data/local/tmp - this should fix the problem extracting assets as well as be more compatible with various devices (in theory). In case the APK notices that this cannot work, it will warn you about this.
- Added some warnings and errors to the APK

21.04.2011: v1.0
- First release of APK
- Slight mods to the exploit source to have it work better from APK

Any problems noted with CDMA vs GSM device for this method?

From what I have seem no, no problems with reception or any antenna problems. I have rooted tons of 2.1 and 2.2 versions from many types of phones for friends and family and nobody has given me any complains on reception problems. I have yet to try Android 2.3.

I have the LG Optimus (not sure on V or whatnot) but have yet to full function with it. Great write-up - someday I hope to understand the use of this "root" principle.

Thanks for the comment, What cellphone provider do you have? I can find out what model really easily. If you have Sprint then is the "S" model I believe, only Virgin Mobile has the V model. I read somewhere Metro PCS also has the Optimus too.

LG pretty much put this phone on every major carrier in North America, including Canada. All the big players in USA have it, including regional carriers and prepaid.

I still love my Motorola Droid 3. I would've gotten the Droid BIONIC, but I needed the physical keyboard.

DROID RAZR...just released. That's what you need.

No physical keyboard and it has no GSM support. I don't mind a bit of bulkiness, so I'll pass

This might help some people rooting their android device.Works on almost every device running ICS or JB. Root MANY ANDROID! [Upd: 22.11.2012] - xda-developers