Trying to root Verizon Note 2 on 4.4.2 ND7... no dice | Update: Rooted successfully!

[MrSh1k1]

Massive update: I was able to root my phone successfully! Read my post below for detailed steps and why I think it worked!

Hi. New guy around. Disclaimer: I live in the Dominican Republic, using the Orange carrier, despite having a Verizon device.

I currently own a Verizon Galaxy Note 2 SCH-I605 which, until yesterday, was rooted and running a 4.3 stock ROM. Because of the Pokémon Go craze, I did my research and figured I could update the phone to 4.4, the minimum version required for Go. So I downloaded the Samsung software (running Win10 here), connected the phone, and upgraded the OS. After the upgrade, I obviously lost root, but also got a bunch of bloatware I had originally deleted when I first rooted it (NFL, IMDB and a bunch of other crap), and now, no matter what the hell I do, none of the multiple methods I've tried will work for rooting the phone. Off the top of my head, Odin fails with a NAND write error, CASUAL loops trying to install the same thing continuously, and the Android Toolkit clearly states that it can't root (I thought it could).

Currently these are the phone/OS specs:
Android version: 4.4.2
Baseband: I605VRUFND7
Kernel version: 3.0.31
Build number: KOT49H.I605VRUFND7
SE for Android status: Enforcing
Hardware version: I605.06

While doing my research, I've read that if the bootloader is locked, there's no luck for me in trying to root this thing, but I have no way of telling whether it is indeed locked or not. Furthermore, this update applies an unreasonable amount of annoyance to my phone, including not being able to write to the external SD card.

Is there anything I can do to get my phone rooted safely? If not, is there any reasonably foolproof way for me to return to the previous version (4.3) so that I can keep the device rooted?

I will appreciate any input on this. Thanks in advance and apologies if I'm breaking any rules with this thread; I went over the rules and didn't see anything I could be breaking with this.

 

[bigmike35]

Hi. New guy around. Disclaimer: I live in the Dominican Republic, using the Orange carrier, despite having a Verizon device.

I currently own a Verizon Galaxy Note 2 SCH-I605 which, until yesterday, was rooted and running a 4.3 stock ROM. Because of the Pokémon Go craze, I did my research and figured I could update the phone to 4.4, the minimum version required for Go. So I downloaded the Samsung software (running Win10 here), connected the phone, and upgraded the OS. After the upgrade, I obviously lost root, but also got a bunch of bloatware I had originally deleted when I first rooted it (NFL, IMDB and a bunch of other crap), and now, no matter what the hell I do, none of the multiple methods I've tried will work for rooting the phone. Off the top of my head, Odin fails with a NAND write error, CASUAL loops trying to install the same thing continuously, and the Android Toolkit clearly states that it can't root (I thought it could).

Currently these are the phone/OS specs:
Android version: 4.4.2
Baseband: I605VRUFND7
Kernel version: 3.0.31
Build number: KOT49H.I605VRUFND7
SE for Android status: Enforcing
Hardware version: I605.06

While doing my research, I've read that if the bootloader is locked, there's no luck for me in trying to root this thing, but I have no way of telling whether it is indeed locked or not. Furthermore, this update applies an unreasonable amount of annoyance to my phone, including not being able to write to the external SD card.

Is there anything I can do to get my phone rooted safely? If not, is there any reasonably foolproof way for me to return to the previous version (4.3) so that I can keep the device rooted?

I will appreciate any input on this. Thanks in advance and apologies if I'm breaking any rules with this thread; I went over the rules and didn't see anything I could be breaking with this.

Nope you are stuck on 4.4.2 since you upgraded and locked the bootloader. Only way back is to send it to a company but thats located in the states and im sure its not worth it. I believe you can still root though using towel root. Thats why you never accept updates. There are some stock roms you can flash now with that option, using R3Ds rom may be your best option.

 

[MrSh1k1]

Update: I was able to root the phone!

Essentially, this reddit post had what I needed: reddit.com/r/AndroidQuestions/comments/2oekwf/can_i_root_my_verizon_note_2_schi605_442/cmn5y51

What I think saved me was the fact that the phone had been rooted before the upgrade, so Root Browser, SuperSU and Busy Box were still there, even if they weren't running anymore.

I repeated the steps on it up until the second time I had to run adb devices to ensure the device was still connected — at this point I had to kill the adb server and start it again. After that, I finished the process with ghettoroot 0.2.2, but didn't see anything new or different on my phone. Then an idea occurred to me — what if SuperSU was failing to install because it was already there? So I fired up Root Browser (which wasn't deleted with the upgrade) and found the location of the SuperSU apk, reinstalled it, and voilá: root access again!

With full credits to the reddit user who posted that message, I'm going to repost and reorganize the entire process here for future reference:

1. Ensure you have the device drivers for the Note 2, you can get them from the Samsung site
2. Download Ghettoroot 0.2.2 and 0.3.2 from here: forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=55170966&postcount=1
3. Unzip both in an easily accessible location, make sure each has their own folder
4. Open a CMD window with "Run as Admin"
5. In the CMD window, navigate to the folder containing Ghettoroot 0.3.2
6. Inside this folder, type cd tools\win\adb and run the command adb devices (this should show you if your phone is recognized and connected)
7. Type cd ..\..\.. to return to the Ghettoroot 0.3.2 folder
8. Type install.cmd and let it run (remember, we're running 0.3.2)
9. Let the phone reboot and leave Installer mode
10. Run the cleanup; chances are it will fail, so try again until it works (it should, eventually — it took me a bunch of tries until it finally worked)
11. Type cd tools\win\adb to enter the adb folder
12. Type adb kill-server to kill adb, then type adb start-server to restart it (I needed this step because after running Ghettoroot adb wouldn't see my device anymore)
13. Type adb devices to ensure your device is still visible to adb
14. Now navigate to the Ghettoroot 0.2.2 folder
15. Type Type install.cmd and let it run (remember, this time we're running 0.2.2)
16. Let the phone reboot and leave Installer mode
17. Run cleanup again until it works

This SHOULD be enough to root your phone, especially if it was rooted before. If it was indeed rooted before, you should already have Root Browser and SuperSU in your /system/app folder, so navigate there and run/install Superuser.apk and execute it to be granted root access. I can't say if this would work if the phone wasn't rooted on 4.3, and I'm really iffy about mucking around with my device now that I safely got it rooted — apologies for not being able to offer more in-depth testing. But for what it's worth, I was finally able to root my Verizon Note 2 running ND7 with the above steps.

Hope this helps someone else out there.

 

[shallmann]

Thanks so much! Somehow I lost root after a SuperSU update (?) from the Play Store. I'd forgotten how much trouble rooting this was.