OUTDATED[Guide] Setting up/using adb/fastboot-unlock, flash custom recovery & root

[trip007in]

This guide is a Bible for rooting Xoom and for installing custom recovery. A very well patiently written guide.

I apologize for offtopic discussion but I just felt that some one in this thread can answer my queries as this thread is meant for all newcomers who have their first encounter with xoom.

Does every device require oem unlock step for over writing with custom bootloader?
Is there any difference between the 3G and Wifi versions of Xoom other than the 3G data connectivity in 3G device? Does 3G version support Wifi version ROMs? If flashed with Wifi version ROM, how difficult it is to go back to ROM that supports 3G?
I am from INDIA and was curious to understand my device. My Xoom is in shipping and I will get it in a day or two, so preparing myself to understand my new Gadget. I have owned Samsung android phones, this is my first encounter with Moto.

 

[okantomi]

Thank you for the kind words. I hope this thread will continue to help people who love this device to take the leap to root and mod their Xoom. Please feel free to add anything you can that will keep it relevant and useful.

I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability.

As far as I know, you must perform OEM unlock in order to make any modifications, including replacing bootloader and recovery.

The 3G (MZ601) and wifi (MZ604) have different hardware, but it's possible for the 3G model to run a rom made for the wifi model without any problems, except of course no mobile data connection, just wifi, etc. Usually it is not hard to go from the wifi-only rom to a 3G supporting rom if they are based on the same basic rom ( both Eos, for instance). For more detail you will need to ask someone that has experience with the 3G Xoom.

Good luck! Enjoy your new Xoom!

 

[lucas.hawro]

My device MZ601 (UK).
Ok, this is the situation I'm currently in.
I've got to 5.8 stage, just before flashing the device with ICS Wingray.
Now, on stage 4.1 I had to use joe's 'The green bot of !' workaround, and I just flashed stock (HC3.0) files downloaded from motodev.
On my microSD I only had Universal Xoom Root file, and being careless I did not copied actual Wingray on it - I meant to do it later on.
Once Xoom was ready for ICS I've realised that Stock Honeycomb doesn't work with SD cards. Having quiet old computer and an iPhone (Apple and their great 'we don't like SD cards' policy...) I could not read/write anything on my microSD - the only device I have and can do it is actually Xoom!
The first thing that came to my mind was - let's upgrade Xoom to stock HC3.2 as normally and then put all necessary files to microSD and start over from 4.1 stage and do the flashing with Universal Xoom Root and ICS Wingray.
Being stupid nabz I just connected Xoom with my WiFi and tried to install OTA upgrade.
Now, device is in constant loop: it's trying to install OTA when booting but obviously it cannot, so Xoom is resetting again normally to lockscreen, and then rebooting to bootloader to install OTA and then whole process repeating itself again and again.
Meantime I went downtown and bought myself a proper USB SD card reader.

Solution: can I do this? (having Universal Xoom Root already installed)
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot -w
fastboot reboot

and start over from stage 4.1?

All help much appreciated.

 

[okantomi]

My device MZ601 (UK).
Ok, this is the situation I'm currently in.
I've got to 5.8 stage, just before flashing the device with ICS Wingray.
Now, on stage 4.1 I had to use joe's 'The green bot of !' workaround, and I just flashed stock (HC3.0) files downloaded from motodev.
On my microSD I only had Universal Xoom Root file, and being careless I did not copied actual Wingray on it - I meant to do it later on.
Once Xoom was ready for ICS I've realised that Stock Honeycomb doesn't work with SD cards. Having quiet old computer and an iPhone (Apple and their great 'we don't like SD cards' policy...) I could not read/write anything on my microSD - the only device I have and can do it is actually Xoom!
The first thing that came to my mind was - let's upgrade Xoom to stock HC3.2 as normally and then put all necessary files to microSD and start over from 4.1 stage and do the flashing with Universal Xoom Root and ICS Wingray.
Being stupid nabz I just connected Xoom with my WiFi and tried to install OTA upgrade.
Now, device is in constant loop: it's trying to install OTA when booting but obviously it cannot, so Xoom is resetting again normally to lockscreen, and then rebooting to bootloader to install OTA and then whole process repeating itself again and again.
Meantime I went downtown and bought myself a proper USB SD card reader.

Solution: can I do this? (having Universal Xoom Root already installed)
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash system system.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot -w
fastboot reboot

and start over from stage 4.1?

All help much appreciated.

You've got my head spinning, lol! I'm sure yours is too.
I think that your solution is a good one. Now what about getting to HC3.1--that's the version that has external sd support for MZ601, right?

Just make sure not to accidentally put a zip file in your platform tools folder...don't want any more complications!

 

[williamthegoat]

Hi, so I've got adb set up and was able to get the xoom unlocked without any issue, however when I try to flash recovery it just gives me an error saying its unable to flash the file. I have it in the platform tools along with the fastboot file, which is where I thought it should be. Any idea why it won't flash? I know I'm typing the command and name in correctly. Hrmm.

 

[lucas.hawro]

You've got my head spinning, lol! I'm sure yours is too.
I think that your solution is a good one. Now what about getting to HC3.1--that's the version that has external sd support for MZ601, right?

Just make sure not to accidentally put a zip file in your platform tools folder...don't want any more complications!

Ok, solution was easy - got to the recovery, then factory reset and clear cache. From there just plugged my new microSD with ICS Wingray.

Just few things to remember:
Stock files - On motodev I could not find anything higher then HC3.0
MicroSD - it's good to have some other devices that reads that thingy, rather then just 'under maintenance' Xoom.
Rooting is easy once you understand the whole philosophy behind adb/fastboot with cmd but I wouldn't be able to grasp it without xda and especially you okantomi, so thank you!

Finally... Hail to the Team EOS and ICS!!!

---------- Post added at 01:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:50 AM ----------

Hi, so I've got adb set up and was able to get the xoom unlocked without any issue, however when I try to flash recovery it just gives me an error saying its unable to flash the file. I have it in the platform tools along with the fastboot file, which is where I thought it should be. Any idea why it won't flash? I know I'm typing the command and name in correctly. Hrmm.

You need to be located in correct folder where recovery file is.
In cmd just put "cd c:\platform tools" (or wherever you have this folder - "cd c:\xxxx") and then flash recovery command.
Worked for me.

 

[williamthegoat]

Oh my god, that did it. Added my recovery and rooted and rebooted, and lo and behold there is superuser! Now I just need to figure out how to get ICS on there now.

 

[okantomi]

Oh my god, that did it. Added my recovery and rooted and rebooted, and lo and behold there is superuser! Now I just need to figure out how to get ICS on there now.

Just go to the Development Section and find an ICS rom that works for you. If you have MZ601 (Euro 3G) you can flash the wingray (MZ604--wifi) version of the Eos rom. Flash the rom and then the GApps zip through your cwm recovery menu, after wiping data/cache and dalvik (advanced).

 

[williamthegoat]

Can I do the same with one of the stingray nightly builds? And can I backup my rom in cmw? Is it really as simple as just downloading the ics zip and the gapps zip and just installing them in cmw?

 

[dsbnz]

excellent tutorial

after reading many many many pages on rooting and flashing the xoom, this one made sense to me. the whole procedure went perfectly, and now enjoying and EOS build of ICS for my mz601.

many thanks for the fantastic tutorial.

 

[genghishahn]

Thanks okantomi! Super useful guide for noobs like myself I finally took the plunge and rooted my xoom--your guide was very helpful! Thanks again!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using XDA App

 

[okantomi]

Can I do the same with one of the stingray nightly builds? And can I backup my rom in cmw? Is it really as simple as just downloading the ics zip and the gapps zip and just installing them in cmw?

Yes, you have done the hard part.
Download the newest stingray nightly zip file and the newest Eos GApps version zip file onto your external sdcard. It sometimes helps to use a smaller sized card and limit what you have on the card. Make sure the sdcard is known to work with an android device (like use one from your phone) some people have had faulty SD cards and that stops the process, of course.

Insert the sdcard in the slot, and I'd recommend a reboot with the card in place, just to ensure it's mounted. Reboot into recovery (either dl Quickboot from the market, or do it manually), and then, when in CWM recovery menu, first go to backup/restore and choose backup. This may take a while, so be prepared.
It's good to have the Xoom fully charged or even plugged in while your doing this stuff.

Once your backup is completed, go back and choose wipe data/factory reset, then choose wipe cache partitions, then navigate to advanced, choose wipe dalvik cache. Then go back to the main menu, choose install zip from sdcard, then choose zip--install the stingray (or wingray, or whatever) zip, then immediately install the GApps zip, then choose reboot now...you will reboot into the ICS setup screen...go ahead and get everything set up and enjoy your new os and new rom!

You will find that following the Eos nightly Stingray thread is very helpful...if you like the way the rom is performing, you can stick with the installed version for a while, but they are making quite a lot of progress with all of their tweaks, and you may get to be a crackflasher like me. It's quite an addiction!

 

[williamthegoat]

Thanks for all the help. So I'm stuck again. I did my backup, and factory reset, cache, and dalvik, and now it wont show my SD when I try to install zip. It did before, but now it wont show up. I went back into HC to verify that it was mounted, and it was. Tried a second one, same thing. Any idea? I'm on Clockwork Mod Recovery 4.0.0.4

Its the same thing in rom manager. Everything just directs to internal storage, yet I can see the SD and browse it in file manager. Odd.

 

[okantomi]

Thanks for all the help. So I'm stuck again. I did my backup, and factory reset, cache, and dalvik, and now it wont show my SD when I try to install zip. It did before, but now it wont show up. I went back into HC to verify that it was mounted, and it was. Tried a second one, same thing. Any idea? I'm on Clockwork Mod Recovery 4.0.0.4

Its the same thing in rom manager. Everything just directs to internal storage, yet I can see the SD and browse it in file manager. Odd.

You need the 3.2.0.0 R4c recovery (solarnz) or maybe the Rogue recovery. The one you installed through Rom Manager doesn't recognize the micro sd card.

 

[williamthegoat]

Oh jeez, duh. I'm officially on ICS now and its so much smoother. Thank you again for answering all my questions. You're a life saver.

 

[okantomi]

Oh jeez, duh. I'm officially on ICS now and its so much smoother. Thank you again for answering all my questions. You're a life saver.

So glad you're on ICS. It is great...what the Xoom was made for!

 

[paulfm]

Thank you so much for these clear instructions. I decided to finally bite the bullet and try out a new EOS Rom. Everything seem to ok right up till the end. I was able to load the new rom, google apps, and finally the root file. I then went to reboot and things went wrong! I get to where the TEAM EOS spinning logo comes up and that’s it. I’ve been sitting on that screen for over an hour. I have tried rebooting a couple of times with the same results. I loaded Eos-stingray-28, EOS_GApps_ics_4.0.3_v10.3, then the Xoom-Universal-Root. Any Ideas?

 

[mthii]

Green bot ! and "device not recognized"

Yup, I screwed up somewhere and now I gotta cry for newb help. Made it all the way to flashing cwm img, made it into recovery and flash cwm zip from there, rebooted and tested a root app (Titanium Backup)... no luck. Went back into android recovery and got the green bot with ! and now adb doesn't recognize my device when i try "adb remount adb shell rm /system/recovery-from-boot.p" from command. So I'm stuck at the green bot with ! exclamation

 

[MYYZTIK]

understanding

This guide gave me a good understanding on what I needed to do and what was involved. Thanks a ton for the Xoom support!

 

[okantomi]

Thank you so much for these clear instructions. I decided to finally bite the bullet and try out a new EOS Rom. Everything seem to ok right up till the end. I was able to load the new rom, google apps, and finally the root file. I then went to reboot and things went wrong! I get to where the TEAM EOS spinning logo comes up and that’s it. I’ve been sitting on that screen for over an hour. I have tried rebooting a couple of times with the same results. I loaded Eos-stingray-28, EOS_GApps_ics_4.0.3_v10.3, then the Xoom-Universal-Root. Any Ideas?

Are you still stuck? You should flash the root file after the Eos rom and the GApps...the Eos rom is pre-rooted.