A9 Recovery Help

[Allodesh]

I have an A9 that I figure'd I'd root since my current phone is a Galaxy J7 and will never see root access ever (it's a tracfone).

Here's what's up. I went through several walk-throughs on trying to root the device with a one-click solutions on my phone and PC. 'OneClickRoot' won't open, KingRoot methods do nothing, and KingoRoot seemed a bit too shady to me. So maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I do some reading and every guide that seemed worth it's weight in text, walked me through unlocking the bootloader first, then rooting. So I download the JavaDev and AndroidDev installers, and other HTC drivers/managers. I have access to adb + fastboot (+ htc_fastboot where applicable). I make an account over at HTCDev and officially unlock the phone. As I read further into this process, TWRP comes up. I download 3.2.1.0 (and eventually some other versions too). I ran 'fastboot flash recovery twrp.img' (also trying the .img with full version in name as downloaded, and changing it to recovery.img). Fastboot takes all of 6.x seconds to do it's work (which doesn't seem quite right for a 38MB file, but what to I know?), and everything seems to check out. If I try to cmd/adb reboot into recovery mode or manually enter it from the fastboot>bootloader>recovery menues, I get an htc logo, delayed black screen than a normal boot to the lockscreen. Clear the cache? Tried it via fastboot, since the stock recovery is gone. Still nothing. At this point I feel I'm missing something very small, or something just plain doens't work. I've checked XDA, and a few other forums to as for back as 2015 posts on rooting/bootloader issues, and tryed little variation in commands trying to make things work. So here I am, first post on XDA, pleaing for help. My head is spinning and if I have to hear the damn AT&T chime on boot after a hung up recovery boot one more time, I am going to destroy this phone.

Since you're going to ask, this is what I'm working with:

HTC One A9 (Model 2PQ9120)[AT&T]

Download Mode:

*** UNLOCKED ***
htc_hiaeul PVT S-ON
LK-1.0.0.0000
[email protected]
OpenDSP-6.8.5.00.190-8952_1013
OS-1.27.502.5
Nov 12 2015,15:40:38(656287)

While on Download Mode:

C:\adb>fastboot getvar all
(bootloader) kernel: lk
(bootloader) product: htc_hiaeul
(bootloader) version: 1.0
(bootloader) imei: 352637070179992
(bootloader) version-main: 1.27.502.5
(bootloader) boot-mode: download
(bootloader) version-baseband: [email protected]
(bootloader) version-bootloader: 1.0.0.0000
(bootloader) mid: 2PQ912000
(bootloader) cid: CWS__001

Bootloader Mode:

[COLOR="Gray"]*** Software status: Offical *** [/COLOR]
[COLOR="Magenta"]*** UNLOCKED ***[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Orange"]*** S-ON ***[/COLOR]

While on Bootloader Mode:

C:\adb>fastboot getvar all
(bootloader) version:0.5
(bootloader) version-baseband:
(bootloader) version-bootloader:
(bootloader) max-download-size: 0x20000000
(bootloader) partition-type:cache:ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:cache:       0x10000000
(bootloader) partition-type:userdata:ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:userdata:    0x625000000
(bootloader) partition-type:system:ext4
(bootloader) partition-size:system:      0xd9000000
(bootloader) serialno:HT5APBE01249

I tried to find a stock recovery image, but I have no clue what I looking for quite honestly, and don't want to flash the wrong thing (though at this point I guess it doesn't matter). I don't need a long drawn-out 'well this is where you kerfuffled your device' speech, ask if I ran a command, and I'll try to elaborate on when and how I did. Or heck, just throw commands at me and I'll just try them out. It's no big deal If I lose the phone altogether, I'm just trying to make it a WiFi only, barbones, games-only device. Thanks ahead of time!

 

[Wonders_Never_Cease]

Magisks will root your device from twrp...You have an ATT variant... Which has not been updated to latest nougat software... 1.27.502.5... This means youll have to flash one of the earliest versions of twrp...

 

[Allodesh]

I tried 3.0.0-0 (didn't work), which is only a year older than the A9, and it's the oldest Team Win has on their site. How early we talking about?


EDIT:

Found an old guide from Dec2015 that cites 'twrp-2.8.7.0_CPTB-B9-hiae.img' as the versio to use, but frequently says 'only use for HTC A9 Tablet'. Is this something I can just try, since it's the recovery partition (is it a partition?) and is already dead. I can't make it go from not working to not working more can I?

 

[drenuler]

I have the exact same phone, with the exact same setup (version#'s, s-on, etc) as Allodesh and I am having the same troubles. I tried following the guide in the Official Lineage OS 15.1 thread and got to the part to install the latest twrp. The latest version didn't take, and I was left without a boot recovery after trying. I tried several other versions and eventually 3.0.0-0 took. I tried flashing the rom from twrp 3.0.0-0, but I am unable to mount the drives and get "invalid argument".

Do you think an earlier version of twrp might help my case too?

My phone still boots up into the stock Android, but I can't do any OTA updates. So, I'm pretty much stuck. I've spent the last week googling, but this is the only thread I found that seems to have the same issues I'm having. So, any help you could offer both of us would be very much appreciated!

By the way, is s-off necessary or relevant to our problems?

Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread, but I think my problems are the same.

 

[drenuler]

Well I've been toying with my phone and searching forums for the last couple of weeks for answers and I've figured out 2 things. For the AT&T US GSM phones we have, the latest version of TWRP that will work for it is 3.0.0-2. Once I flashed that, my mounting troubles stopped and I was able to successfully root my phone by flashing the SuperSU zip.

The 2nd thing I found out is that LineageOS won't work on this phone without getting S-Off and upgrading the firmware using one of the other carrier's RUU files which is way more work than I want to get into. I wish this information was in the How-To install Lineage guide for the HTC One A9, as I probably would have got a different phone, but oh well, at least it's rooted now and I can clear out the bloatware.

If you want to start over from square one, just find the correct RUU (I can't post the link apparently, too new to the forum) and run it from windows and it'll restore it to factory. It might take a couple of tries for it to install, but it works.

Hope that helps a little.