It’s been three months since our last State of Root post, and in that time we’ve had several breakthroughs in the HTC EVO 3D world, some fascinating ROM developments to add to the original EVO 4G’s catalog of greatness, and an entirely new EVO phone to add to the already impressive lineup.
Every month the internet becomes a dumping ground for more and more outdated, obsolete, and potentially damaging information about root methods and ROMs for the HTC EVO 4G, the HTC EVO 3D, and soon enough for the HTC EVO 4G LTE. This isn’t done maliciously; it’s just easier to leave up old information than it is to go back and update things.
As of today, June 21, 2012, everything you’ll find below should work. If several months have gone by and you’re reading this, look for a newer EVO ROOT entry on Pocketables/G&E, and if something is wrong please let me know.
My goal here is to provide the basics for the 3D/4G/4G LTE. I can’t include every tool, method, or ROM, but my hope is to have a couple of ROMs that are decent, tools that currently work, and methods that should not cause problems. Please keep in mind that I’m dealing with the basics. If your favorite ROM, tool, or team has been overlooked, drop a note and feel free to use the comments section to point them out to me and other readers.
I do not own an EVO Shift, View, or Design 4G. As such I do not know if any of these these will work for those devices or be at all useful.
It bears stressing here that as of June 2012 you can completely root, flash custom ROMs, and have the whole root experience on all EVO devices via unlocking the bootloader at HTCDev.com and still get warranty repairs. S-OFF is not required to root and flash ROMs on a phone; however, on the EVO 3D you may have to jump through one more hoop to flash a kernel.
Unlocking Bootloader/NAND/S-OFF
Note: “Old” means a working method for phones that haven’t been updated, not a dead link.
An unlocked boot.img/bootloader is required to flash Recovery, which allows you to install custom ROMs and patches.
EVO 4G: Unrevoked (old) | Revolutionary (old) | HTCDev (new)
EVO 3D: Revolutionary (old) | HTCDev (new) | 1.5 S-OFF (complex/expert) | Unlimited.IO 1.5 S-OFF with the wire trick (advanced)
EVO 4G LTE: HTCDev | RegawMOD (automatic) | Non-destructive local root
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 | 4EXT
EVO 4G LTE: TeamWin
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/EVO 4G LTE: AndroidSU | SuperSU
How to unroot
EVO 4G: Unroot (Unrevoked/Revolutionary)
EVO 3D: Unroot (Revolutionary) | Unroot (HTCDev/return to stock)
EVO 4G LTE: Unroot
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)
EVO 4G LTE: Captain Throwback’s S-ON flashable radios
ADB
EVO 4G/EVO 3D/EVO 4G LTE: G&E’s ADB basics
EVO 4G/EVO 3D/EVO 4G LTE: ADB/Fastboot mini toolkit
Kernels
Discontinuing this section at the moment as kernel pages seem to go down shortly after I post links to them.
Maintained or recently updated ROMs
There are, at my last count, over 80 ROMs in active development. I’m going to list just a few here. If you want to advertise another ROM just put it in the comments section with a link where to download it.
EVO 4G: ParanoidAndroid | The Classic | Deck’s ReLoaded | DigitalKarma
EVO 3D: Cool ICS v6 | Swagged Out Stock | ZR3DX
EVO 4G LTE: OMJ’s HTC ELTE | ViperRom |Fresh
Tools
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: HTC Supertool
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: QPST | QPST/Diag drivers for windows
How-to guides
Note: Posting comments or questions in any of these guides will only been seen by people reading the guide. In other words, if you’re looking for help, post in this thread or in the forums.
EVO 3D/EVO 4G/EVO LTE: Create a Nandroid backup
EVO 3D: Root with HBOOT 1.50
EVO 4G: Unroot your EVO 4G rooted with Unrevoked
EVO 3D: Unroot your EVO 3D rooted with Revolutionary
EVO 3D: Unroot your EVO 3D rooted with HTCDev
EVO 4G: Root with Revolutionary
EVO 4G: Root with HTCDev
EVO 4G/EVO 3D: Join the root world if you’re on a Mac (little dated; you’ll use the HTCdev method)
EVO 3D: Recover your ROM’s kernel from the install package (if you flashed a kernel and it’s bad)
EVO 3D: How to recover your bricked rooted HTC EVO 4G or 3D
EVO 3D: Flash from recovery mode EVO 3D 1.50 / S-ON
EVO 4G LTE: How to unlock/root and still keep your stuff
EVO 4G LTE: Clear your Wallet settings when Wallet is locked down
What all these things mean
Glossary of commonly used phone terms
Good places to discuss and ask questions
GoodandEVO forums
Vaelek’s forums
TincAndroid
TheRootofAllEVO
Did I miss something?
While I keep up with as much of the HTC EVO line as I can, lots of times something can get overlooked because development on the EVOs is so fast that a two-day-old ROM or tool looks ancient compared to the slew of new things out today.
If I missed something, please drop a note in the comments and I’ll either update the State of Root, or readers will see that it’s been posted and is important to you.
you da man!
ClockworkMod doesn’t work on HTC EVO 4G LTE yet?
I assume it does… it was the first recovery ported over. I also read page after page of partition corruption that TWRP had corrected.
As I’m not running a recovery *yet* on my 4g lte, figured it was safer to just list what I know is fixed and working than what I last checked and was buggy.
Evo 4g View ?
5th paragraph. I don’t own one, and G&E didn’t ever have root coverage of the View, Shift, or Design.
As I can’t verify any of the View stuff unless someone wants to provide me with a View, it’s not in my guide. If you need info on the View, I can point you here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1023
But, that’s not anything that we have tested, deal with, etc whereas all the links above we’ve probably covered first hand.
EVO 3D: Newt’s One S ICS/Sense 4 ROM:
http://themikmik.com/showthread.php?12307-Rom-Newts-One-S-*RLS-1*-Live!!!-%28Sense-4-0-ICS-4-0-3%29-6-19-2012-Daily-Driver
Fantastic ROM. Feature packed. Only things not working at the moment are 4G and 3D. Newt updated to RLS1 this week and, after he moves, will update again. Go check it out if you want to see how ICS and Sense 4 can sing on a 3D.
That link didn’t parse for crap. So here it is again:
http://themikmik.com/showthread.php?12307-Rom-Newts-One-S-*RLS-1*-Live!!!-%28Sense-4-0-ICS-4-0-3%29-6-19-2012-Daily-Driver
Well crap. Here’s a bit.ly:
http://bit.ly/M8JCo5
Thanks to developer agrabren, the EVO 3d has an AOSP CM9 rom with working camera, and it’s stable enough for daily use. Highly recommended.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1703070
I must agree with sam, Newt one S for the evo 3d is amazing and also Themikmik.com is a great place to ask questions and very friendly
But great write up. Very thorough and usefull. Thank you
Thanks for putting this out there and keeping it updated. It might be worthwhile to note that Google Wallet needs to be cleared before rooting (or is it only when flashing a ROM?) on the LTE,
I am told it’s only when flashing a new ROM or using HTC Unlock… so local root shouldn’t do anything to it. Will edit this to point that out when I get a chance…
what root would i use for the evo v 4g?is there a one click root that will work.
I have a Evo 4g LTE, I’m basic rooted with S-on. I Downloaded GooManager from TeamWin Recovery. I want to download stock ROM with the Latest OTA and Radio’s with the Google Wallet Fix ect… I have fast boot off, I can’t seem to boot into recovery from GooManager or Quick Boot.. How do I flash the new ROM with the OTA update.. Could someone please direct me to a link or fill me in. I used to switch rome on my OG all of the time but it seems it’s become either slightly more complicated or I just need to update some knowledge..
Thanks!
keep getting error 170 every time im trying to unroot my evo lte can someone plz help me i dunno what to need to return my evo lte for warrenty issues
I typed “error 170 unroot evo” and got this as the first result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubojjznmE_8
has a link in the description for “files needed if you get error 170″
Evidently error 170 is a USB connection error common across all the evos. For the 4G LTE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1671577&page=44 looks like try from the bootloader or fastboot.
Does the root method for the Evo 3D work with the ICS update and HBOOT 1.58?
i have an odd question! well my phone is rooted and romed, i have the evo 3d. i use my wifi daily! i started plugging my phone into my laptop, to let it charge just for convenience. well for some reason, about a week ago, i noticed that my wifi was off on my phone, so i turned it back on, it said it was on, but when i look at the top bar on my phone its not on and i only get 3g with crappy reception! also now on my laptop, its wifi is on as well, but as of the same day i found this problem with my phone, my laptop wont show me the wifi bars. my boyfriend says its the way i plugged my phone into the computer and unplugged it! he said he would have to flash my phone, and im not willing to loose all my music! i guess im asking if anyone know any solution to my problem, because im kinda stuck!! anything would help, please…….
OK, few thing – 1 what ROM are you running?
2 – not much would go between the laptop and the phone, so I think that the WiFi issue you’re seeing on both is a red herring.
3 – if your music is on the SD card unless he screws up badly, it won’t erase anything. However you’ve got a laptop, so copy the music to it.
Two things I can think of for the phone are that it’s in WiFi tether mode, or that the kernel wasn’t installed properly – when a kernel’s not installed properly you end up with the phone working and the wifi will say it’s turning on but say error.
As for the way you plugged the phone in and unplugged it… if you plugged it in by drilling a hole in the back of the case through the wifi chip, maybe… or if you set up the mode as tether when you plugged it in and said “don’t ask again” maybe.
im running meanrom ics v2.6 stock kernel. thank you ill try a few of your options! youve been a big help
my boyfriend said he knows how to flash it, without dumping the sd, but he says he cant make any promises!
tell him to make a nandroid backup first just in case