Next Atrix Bootloader is UNLOCKABLE

eval- · 03:50 PM

Next Atrix Bootloader is UNLOCKABLE

As you've probably seen, the2dCour has a very tasty morsel of what's to come for us all. He's one of the many great people in #moto-atrix, including Jug6, Edgan, Sogarth, unknown, Brandon15811, and helpful friends, Pauly, dasmoover, cranch, YellowGTO and more, who have been helping me poke at the Atrix for many weeks. Also, if I know anything at all (I don't) it's thanks to [mbm] and Skrilax and xvilka and the others who implemented the hard work of 2nd init and kexec and beat their head against Motorola's signature chain on the previous generation of phones.

But our biggest thanks go to Motorola. A very friendly 'community-minded engineer' at Motorola posted an interesting message in hex on their support forums yesterday. Turns out, maybe it's no joke after all.
(http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1134786)

This got me to thinking. I was already looking through some of the ascii / hex of the bootloaders. Search for VOID and you'll find something completely new in the HKTW (Hong Kong / Taiwan) build, which is not in the CGs for any prior Atrix bootloader:

Code:

$ strings CG42.img | grep INFO
...
INFOUnlocking your device can permanently VOID your warranty.
INFOThis process cannot be reversed.  If you wish to proceed,
INFOreissue the unlock OEM command containing the unique ID
INFOof your device:

On Edgan's engineering phone, the HKTW build enables a command you may all be familiar with:

fastboot oem unlock

It looks as if it asks you to issue the command twice, after giving you a unique ID (based on your phone) you must enter in. Surrounding parts of the CG suggest this will wipe your userdata much like a "fastboot -w" currently does. Our hypothesis about the fuses may also be backwards, and it is unlocking which burns a fuse, thus making this an operation which "cannot be reversed."

So, I think we can all look forward to Gingerbread's release for many reasons!!!

PS. Beyond voiding the warranty, or access to support, such an operation could potentially make your phone ineligible for OTAs, future retail .sbfs, etc... and we do not yet know which carriers will get it. So don't get TOO excited :-p

PPS. If this is headed to the official release, I'd like to give a HUGE thanks to Irwin Proud and all the others who petitioned Motorola to make this happen!
But there's no time to rest. Now we must pressure all the carriers!

kennethpenn · 04:20 AM

Confirmed working for AT&T users!! Eval emailed me the good news this morning, so we tried it on leaked GB for the Atrix 4G on AT&T.

http://briefmobile.com/exclusive-atr...oid-2-3-update

I tested it out on my Gingerbread beta builds.

ikenley · 05:32 AM

This is excellent news everyone.

Be patient, we need to see if this update hits all our devices, but when it does, I guarantee there will be no shortage of Roms and Mods that will come as a result.

I actually think Motorola may see a spike in sales when 2.3.3 hits their Atrix phones.

Thank you everyone who showed your support for the Unlock Motorola campaign and went out of their way to make their voices heard. Together we stand and together we claim victory.

Thank you Motorola.