It's been about four months since our last State of Root post, and in that time several ROMs and developers have come and gone, new and interesting things have appeared, and some methods have changed. That's enough to warrant a new piece.
Every month, the internet increasingly becomes the dumping ground for more and more outdated and obsolete information about root on the HTC EVO 4G and HTC EVO 3D. So many sites are dead ends due to developer apathy/life/death. Old information is left up because it's easier to leave it up than clean it up, and people just forget and move on to newer and better things, leaving a wasteland of useless data and how-to guides behind that no longer work.
As of today, March 16, 2012 everything you'll find below works (or at least it should). If six months have gone by and you're reading this, look for a newer one on right here on G&E; we regularly update the site (but not necessarily the old pages) with new information.
My goal here is to provide most of the basics for the 3D/4G. I can't include every tool, method, etc., but if you see something missing or wrong or that needs to be added, just let me know and I will correct it. Also feel free to make recommendations in the comments section.
Keep in mind, I'm dealing with the basics and if I didn't include your favorite ROM, kernel, or tool, it's not because I hate them; I'm just trying to keep this somewhat concise. You can mention anything you think should be added in the comments section below.
I'm also not an EVO Shift, View, or Design owner – some of these things may work for you, some may not.
Unlocking NAND/S-OFF
Note: "old" means a working method for phones that haven't been updated, not a dead link.
EVO 4G: Unrevoked (old) | Revolutionary (old) | HTCDev (new)
EVO 3D: Revolutionary (old) | HTCDev (new) | 1.5 S-OFF (complex/expert)
You can get full root benefits with either phone and any HBOOT level. As of 3/15/12 you can downgrade HBOOTs on either the 4G or 3D to obtain S-OFF.
Recovery
Recovery is used to flash ROMs and .zips, create Nandroid backups, restore Nandroids, and so on.
EVO 4G: Amon Ra | TeamWIN | ClockworkMOD
EVO 3D: TeamWIN | ClockworkMOD | Amon Ra
Additional steps required to have a fully-functional recovery with HTC EVO 3D HBOOT 1.50/S-ON: Hard way | Easy way
Nandroid backups
See this:
Why we root our phones
See this:
Why I rooted my phone (and why you might want to root yours too)
Superuser
Superuser is required on NAND-unlocked phones to give root access to programs.
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: AndroidSU | SuperSU
How to unroot
EVO 4G: Unroot (Unrevoked/Revolutionary)
EVO 3D: Unroot (Revolutionary) | Unroot (HTCDev/return to stock)
Radios/HBOOT
Just in case you need to update or roll back.
EVO 4G: Caulkin's thread
EVO 3D: XDA | Football's shipped ROM collection (RUUs)
ADB
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: G&E's ADB basics
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: ADB/Fastboot mini toolkit
Kernels
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: Tiamat
EVO 3D: Anthrax | Freeza's StockMOD
Maintained or recently updated ROMs
There are tons out there and development is going strong on both phones still, but these are good starters.
EVO 4G: CyanogenMod (AOSP) | MIUI (AOSP) | AOKP (Ice Cream Sandwich test)
EVO 4G: Smooth 'N' Sexy (Sense) | Swagged Out Stock (Sense) | MikG (Sense)
EVO 3D: CyanogenMod (AOSP) | MIUI (AOSP) | InfectedROM Eternity (Sense)
EVO 3D: Warm TwoPointThree (Sense) | MikG (Sense)
Tools
3D/4G: HTC Supertool
3D/4G: QPST | QPST/Diag drivers for windows
How-to guides
3D/4G: Create a Nandroid backup
3D: Root with HBOOT 1.50
4G: Unroot your EVO 4G rooted with Unrevoked
3D: Unroot your EVO 3D rooted with Revolutionary
3D: Unroot your EVO 3D rooted with HTCDev
4G: Root with Revolutionary
4G: Root with HTCDev
4G/3D: Join the root world if you're on a Mac (little dated, you'll use the HTCdev method)
3D: Recover your ROM's kernel from the install package (if you flashed a kernel and it's bad)
3D: How to recover your bricked rooted HTC EVO 4G or 3D
3D: Flash from recovery mode EVO 3D 1.50 / S-ON
What do all these things mean
Glossary of commonly used phone terms
Thanks for the hard work! It’s rare to find up-to-date information in one place. Hopefully a dev will make the 1.5 S-off automated over the weekend. I thought I was comfortable doing almost anything with the 3D, but the current method scares me. Thanks again.
Thank you for such a great resource.
A long time ago I bitched about the very thing that G&E has so effectively addressed in these pages.
Good work!
I’m with Jake (and no doubt, countless others): Thanks, Paul. You guys are an awesome resource.
Caulkin’s thread for the latest radio’s… has links to MEDIAFIRE and none of the needed files are there. Anyone else know of other sources for these files?
Ah darn, will find a different link when I get back
Sent from my Infected HTC smartphone on the Now Network from Sprint!
The MikG link gives a 404 error too…
changed it to their forums as they changed the download links
I am going to wait till tomorrow to look 1) because it’s 1:40am am now, 2) because evidently the links were working this morning so hopefully they’ll return or someone will be so kind as to forward me a new set of links.
Thanks much for keeping this site up to date. We all really appreciate it. I am hoping someone would come up with easy way (like Revolutionary) to gain s-off on evo 4g with Hboot 2.18.
While Caulkin’s are down, Rootzwiki has a radio/download page might work: http://wiki.rootzwiki.com/HTC_EVO_4G_Downloads
Well, my real need to root my evo3d was to do wifi tether. But with foxfi I at least have bluetooth tethering. Only other reason why I would love root is for better battery life with a custom rom or at least by installing setcpu. By the time they do an easy method like revolutionary or a method that doesn’t tell htc and sprint “im rooted” there will be a new htc phone. Hopefully with LTE and NFC which I can’t wait to use.
I do believe it is time for a new one of these…
Yes, please
anybody have cdma workshop to share like 3.3.5 and up /////thanks…….alejandroa35@gmail.com
From their site: http://www.cdma-ware.com/workshop.html
Not much you can’t do with the eval copy