I received my phone today from Aliexpress and was able to update, unlock bootloader and root my phone so I want to share the steps.
Follow them at your own risk, I take no responsibility for any issues or bricking. You should always backup your phone before doing any of these steps.
This tutorial is for CN phones that already have the Global Rom installed (AKA Aliexpress special phones).
I do NOT know how to install the Global Rom on a CN stock phone, please do not ask and do NOT use this tutorial if your phone does not already have the global rom installed. You will likely get the message about the OS not being supported on this HW and the phone will be unusable until you flash back the CN rom. I do not what the sellers on Aliexpress are doing to bypass this message. You have been warned and I will not provide any support!
Prerequisites:
1. A CN phone with Global Rom already installed (Seriously, if you dont have this stop reading)
2. Lenovo Rescue and Smart Assistant
https://support.lenovo.com/bh/en/downloads/ds101291-rescue-and-smart-assistant-lmsa
3. Latest Global Rom firmware file
You can use Rescue program to get or you can download it externally from here
https://www.getdroidtips.com/lenovo-legion-2-pro-firmware-flash-file/
4. ADB
Updating your Phone:
The phone I received from Aliexpress came with Global Rom 12.5.062 ST which is a bit outdated. I tried the OTA app on the phone but it said no update was available. I used the tool Lenovo Rescue and Smart Assistant to update it to 12.5.137 ST which is the latest version of the Global Rom as of this post. I did not have to unlock my bootloader first to update. Special Thanks to
hhda2004 for the update steps.
1- Download
Rescue and Smart Assistant for windows.
2- Enable developer option through my phone settings by tapping on the build number (Legion OS) 7 times
3- Go to General Settings and enter Developer options , enable USB debugging
4- Install run the Rescue and Smart assistant software and connect the phone.
5- Choose the Rescue option to download latest software update (it will ask for IMEI first but If it cant find it you can search for it manually)
6- Ensure your phone model number matches the OS being downloaded , in my case it is L70081, for HW Code choose none and for country I chose UK
7- follow instructions on the windows Rescue app software and it will guide you through.
View attachment 5412499
8-Once you have followed the onscreen steps, your phone should reboot and you should be on the latest version of the global rom.
View attachment 5412521
Unlocking bootloader:
These steps are for a CN phone with Global Rom already Installed. Please note I take no responsibility for issues or bricking regardless if you have the Global Rom installed or not. Continue at your own risks. The following steps assume you already have ADB. If not the link below has more links and information. You may lose features like Gpay and others if you unlock the bootloader
I used this tutorial to Unlock the bootloader. It has more in detail than I will provide below
https://www.getdroidtips.com/unlock-bootloader-lenovo-legion-2-pro-l70081/
1. Enable Developer Settings and toggle "OEM unlock" and "USB Debugging" to ON
2. Once you have ADB and Lenovo USB drivers, you will need to get your IMEI and Serial to be able to use the ZUI website to unlock your phone.
3. Connect your phone to the PC and Change USB configuration to File Transfer (Note: I found this setting to be very unstable, I had to unplug and replug the phone for the setting to take affect and sometime it was easier for the PC to recognize the phone if I used the side USB-C port instead of the bottom port)
4. Open ADB
5. Type in ADB
6. Once in the bootloader, write down the serial number. You can hit the power bottom to reboot normally at this point, we just need the serial
7. Goto this website to unlock your phone and obtain the needed .img file to move forward with unlocking
https://www.zui.com/iunlock
8. Its in Chinese but in the first field enter your IMEI number from My Phone Settings. in the second field, enter the serial number you obtained from the bootloader, third is your email and the fourth field box is a captcha code, just copy the number to right of it. For me, it took about 15 mins to get the email but Ive seen people mention it could take days to get the email. Make sure to check your spam folder if you are not seeing the email
DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP
9. Once you get the email, it will have a link to download a .img, you will need that to unlock your bootloader. Download it and place it your ADB folder. Note: it was a 5kb file for me.
10. Open ADB again and do the following commands
Followed by
If a device ID does not appear, unplug your phone and replug it. As I mentioned earlier, my phone was very finicky with being detected as a USB device.
Next we are going the flash the .img from the email provided by ZUI in step 9
Next we will send the unlock command. Do NOT do this if you did not flash the .IMG provided by the ZUI website first
Your phone automatically reboot and you should see a warning about the bootloader being unlocked before you see the android logo
If it did not auto reboot you can hit it with
11. That's it, your phone's bootloader should be unlocked now.
Rooting your phone with Magisk:
This is the tutorial I used to root your phone. You will need to unlock the bootloader first. Gpay may stop working.
https://www.getdroidtips.com/root-lenovo-legion-2-pro-l70081/
1. Download the latest Magisk apk
2. Download the matching firmware for phone, you can use the Lenovo Rescue and Assistance or download from this link.
https://www.getdroidtips.com/lenovo-legion-2-pro-firmware-flash-file/
3. Extract the boot.img from the firmware zip file
4. Place both the Magisk apk and boot.img on the internal storage of your phone
5. Use a file explorer app to install the magisk apk.
6. Open Magisk and tap install
7. Choose the option to select and patch a file
8. Select the boot.img from internal storage
9. Magisk will create a patched img, make note of file path of the patched img and pull the patched img out of the phone and place it in ADB folder in the PC
10. Back on the PC open ADB and type
next find the current slot (a or b)
If the response for the current slot is "a" chose the following command, if "b", use the second command instead.
if slot "a"
if slot "b"
next reboot the device
11. Once rebooted, you can confirm the root by going back into magisk or using an app like rootchecker
View attachment 5412705
How to pass SafetyNet:
This assumes you are already rooted. If not read above. If you open Magisk and fail to pass safetynet you can fix this by using a Magisk Modules.
1. Download SafetyNet fix by kdrag0n and place the zip on phone
https://github.com/kdrag0n/safetynet-fix/releases
2. Open Magisk and goto Modules. Search for Riru and install the module. Reboot
3. Go back to Magisk and goto Modules. Select install from storage on the top right
4. Install the SafetyNet fix by kdrag0n. Reboot
5. Your SafetyNet Check will pass
6. Open Magisk go to setting and turn on MagiskHide. Open MagiskHide options and check all the option for Gpay(Note: not sure if this step is necessary since kdrag0n said he added all things that MagiskHide was doing to his fix but i did it anyways and had no issue)
7. You should be able to use Gpay and add cards with your rooted phone
View attachment 5414929