How To Permanently Root Verizon HTC Thunderbolt

After barely being out for a couple of days, the HTC Thunderbolt (essentially the Verizon variant of the HTC Desire HD & HTC Inspire 4G) has been rooted successfully and as usual, we will show you how be amongst the first ones to root yours if you have been able to get your hands on this 4G Android device. Read on for our complete guide.

This rooting procedure right now is very crude. Before we move on, you should know that rooting with this method will require your phones firmware to be downgraded to an older version that could contain bugs that are not public as of yet. Secondly, no custom recovery or kernels are available for this device as of yet. However, those should be out pretty soon and once they are, you’ll be able to install them with this root access.

Disclaimer: Please follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.

Requirements:

• ADB installed on your system. See our guide on how to install and use ADB.
• (https://addictivetips.com/app/uploads/2011/03/HTC-Thunderbolt-Rooting-Toolkit.zip) HTC Thunderbolt Rooting Toolkit (Extract the contents of the zip file to your computer)
• (https://www.multiupload.com/9037CNOKB8) Old Official Thunderbolt Firmware (Rename to PG05IMG.zip)

Instructions:

1. Enable USB debugging on your phone from Settings > Applications > Development and connect it to your PC via USB.
2. Launch Command Prompt, navigate to the folder where you extracted the rooting toolkit and enter the following commands:

   adb push psneuter /data/local/
   adb push busybox /data/local/
   adb push su /sdcard/su
   adb push misc.img /sdcard/
   adb shell
   chmod 777 /data/local/psneuter
   chmod 777 /data/local/busybox
   /data/local/psneuter

3. Doing so will kick you out of ADB and ADB will restart as root. Now it’s time to confirm the MD5 of misc.img. Do so by runing the following commands:

   adb shell
   /data/local/busybox md5sum /sdcard/misc.img

   The output should be c88dd947eb3b36eec90503a3525ae0de. If the code returned is anything different, you need to re-download the file and try again.

4. Now we will write the custom misc.img file to the phone using the following commands:

   dd if=/sdcard/misc.img of=/dev/block/mmcblk0p17
   exit

5. Now transfer the PG05IMG.zipfile to your SD card and once the transfer is done, enter this command:

   adb reboot bootloader

   Doing so will reboot your device into the bootloader and the system will automatically start checking the image.

6. Once the image has been scanned by the bootloader, it will offer you to install it by pressing the Volume-Up key or exit by pressing ‘Volume-Down’. Simply press ‘Volume-Up’ and the installation will begin.
7. After the installation is complete, press the ‘Power’ key to reboot the phone once it prompts you to do so.
8. Once the phone boots back into Android, delete the PG05IMG.zip file from the SD card.
9. Enable USB debugging on your phone again and also enable ‘Unknown sources’ in Settings > Applications.
10. Now enter these commands in the command prompt window on your computer:

    adb push psneuter /data/local/
    adb push busybox /data/local/
    adb shell
    chmod 777 /data/local/psneuter
    chmod 777 /data/local/busybox
    /data/local/psneuter
    mount -o remount,rw -t ext3 /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system
    /data/local/busybox cp /sdcard/su /system/xbin/su
    chmod 4777 /system/xbin/su
    chown 0:0 /system/xbin/su
    exit

11. Launch Market on your phone and install the Superuser app from it.
12. Reboot your phone and you’re done!

Phew! Well yes, it was a lengthy process, but it was all worth it in the end. Congratulations – your HTC Thunderbolt is permanently rooted.

[VIA ANDROID POLICE]

Read Full Bio

Zayed Rehman

Studying Development Sciences in the humble pursuit of saving this world; making occasional contributions to the world of Android. | Find me on Google+

Latest from Author

Chainfire’s 500 Firepaper Auto-Rotates Your Android Wallpaper Between 500px Photos Use Your Android Device To Listen To Emails And News On The Go