Unlocking and rooting

Snah001

Senior Member
Jun 3, 2006
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I tried all known methods for rooting but all failed.
Even when you unlock it there is still no TWRP available for the 701.
I asked the devs of twrp on their website to take a look at the 701.
If anyone has more knowledge about progress made on this subject please react here.

Sent from my superfast Asus Infinity TF701with Dock
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
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Now, if you have fastboot OEM unlock,
,
Then perhaps you can pull your boot.img, separate zImage from Ramdisk, modify ro.secure=0, add RW comments, repack your boot.img, fastboot flash boot boot.img, then install BB and SU.

Just a thought.

MD
Sad part the "Fastboot OEM unlock" won't work cause Asus has theirs encrypted. You have to use their unlocking tool to unlock your bootloader. Given fact it can work, been trying it for 2 days now and stupid app won't unlock my bootloader. Read my S/N may not be registered in their database so emailed them complaining about another service that doesn't work.
 

Moscow Desire

Retired Senior Moderator
Sad part the "Fastboot OEM unlock" won't work cause Asus has theirs encrypted. You have to use their unlocking tool to unlock your bootloader. Given fact it can work, been trying it for 2 days now and stupid app won't unlock my bootloader. Read my S/N may not be registered in their database so emailed them complaining about another service that doesn't work.
They'll get around to it. Heck, when I had to turn in my A701 to service center, they didn't even know it had been released ;) Tried telling me it was a "leaked and illegal" tablet.

Good luck with the bootloader mate, but root after that should be pretty straight forward. (fingers crossed)
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
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They'll get around to it. Heck, when I had to turn in my A701 to service center, they didn't even know it had been released ;) Tried telling me it was a "leaked and illegal" tablet.

Good luck with the bootloader mate, but root after that should be pretty straight forward. (fingers crossed)
Yeah well tried to call them and got the usual "just send it back" well not waiting 2-3 weeks just get to get it back. Since there is something wrong with the charge port anyways just gonna send it back to amazon to have new one in couple days. Gotta love the return policy.

I think that unlocking bootloader is bad idea. After that the warranty will be void...
Um thats just lame excuse from companies to force us to keep their crap on the devices we purchase. All my devices are rooted and unlocked and not one has died yet. After going through and disabling 2/3rds of crap on this tablet now I want that few hundred megabytes back in space. For as much crap I disabled I wouldn't be surprised im more close to 1gb back.
 

Snah001

Senior Member
Jun 3, 2006
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They'll get around to it. Heck, when I had to turn in my A701 to service center, they didn't even know it had been released ;) Tried telling me it was a "leaked and illegal" tablet.

Good luck with the bootloader mate, but root after that should be pretty straight forward. (fingers crossed)
What a morons sometimes. Strange because I had the issue with the connection between dock and tablet where the connection between the 2 for a split moment was gone when adjusting the tilt angle, I got an immediate replacement. This problem I guarantee you we will see more often showing up here.
And what the rooting concerns: when the TWRP devs have their version for the 701 finished, it will be not that hard anymore. Just takes some time before that is done.

And for the flaming thing sorry, but I don't like to get hit by childish behavior when just reporting and next to that by a guy that is probably half my age and just comes looking in here (look @ date I joined xda lol) :rolleyes:
Thanks for removing that post.
 

Moscow Desire

Retired Senior Moderator
What a morons sometimes. Strange because I had the issue with the connection between dock and tablet where the connection between the 2 for a split moment was gone when adjusting the tilt angle, I got an immediate replacement. This problem I guarantee you we will see more often showing up here.
And what the rooting concerns: when the TWRP devs have their version for the 701 finished, it will be not that hard anymore. Just takes some time before that is done.

And for the flaming thing sorry, but I don't like to get hit by childish behavior when just reporting and next to that by a guy that is probably half my age and just comes looking in here (look @ date I joined xda lol) :rolleyes:
Thanks for removing that post.
Hate returns. Took 3 months to get a refund. (welcome to Russia). Honestly, it was all due to rush jobs on CWM for the 510 and 700's. Bozos were in a rush to be the first, and used the "fstab's" from the wrong device. Bricked several tabs before I put a stop to it. Basically ruined the emmc memory. Mainboard replacements.

Well, I know folks are itchy to get things going. What starts as a joke, turns into flaming.

You folks always remember, takes 2 people for an argument. You all have the "Report Post" button on the toolbar. Please use it. ;)

Honestly, I expect you folks to help each other out. Makes for a better forum.

Carry On!

MD
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
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What a morons sometimes. Strange because I had the issue with the connection between dock and tablet where the connection between the 2 for a split moment was gone when adjusting the tilt angle, I got an immediate replacement. This problem I guarantee you we will see more often showing up here.
And what the rooting concerns: when the TWRP devs have their version for the 701 finished, it will be not that hard anymore. Just takes some time before that is done.

And for the flaming thing sorry, but I don't like to get hit by childish behavior when just reporting and next to that by a guy that is probably half my age and just comes looking in here (look @ date I joined xda lol) :rolleyes:
Thanks for removing that post.
well next time you may want to think twice before asuming someone younger than you. guess i am to young to know where the movie that reference came from. i already have the boot.img altered and ready to try. also dont ask for it, havent tested it yet so going to have to wait till amazon gives me new one. it really isnt hard to alter, moscow already gave instructions.
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
139
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Update Amazon has shipped my new tablet so may be here tomorrow (i hope) if my new boot.img works and gives me root then I will pass it on, sadly though it won't be in a format in which you can just use a custom recovery, you have to flash it manually but if it works I will post how to flash it (all i need to remember is which tools to zip up in the entire SDK) LOL.
 
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snake2332

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Dec 26, 2010
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Um thats just lame excuse from companies to force us to keep their crap on the devices we purchase. All my devices are rooted and unlocked and not one has died yet. After going through and disabling 2/3rds of crap on this tablet now I want that few hundred megabytes back in space. For as much crap I disabled I wouldn't be surprised im more close to 1gb back.
It is VERY lame. I sold my TF700 because of the slow I/O causing lag that I couldn't live with. Of course I had the bootloader unlocked, so the warranty was void. I divulged that info in the eBay auction for the most part (I didn't say the warranty was void because I didn't know that was the case. Ignorant, I know). Anyway, the new owner of my TF700 emailed me after a couple months asking me why ASUS was charging them $280 for fixing the faulty touchscreen. They said ASUS says it's not under warranty because of the unlocked bootloader. I felt bad for the new owners, having to fork out the money. They're $800 into the TF700 w/dock at this point.

So I would say: Think twice before unlocking the bootloader on the TF701, when custom-recovery even comes out for it.
Personally, with my TF701 that I ordered on newgg today, I am going to leave the bootloader locked for awhile. I can live with the stock ROM, hopefully with root access. Maybe after a few months I'll unlock the bootloader. It would be nice to do it in a way that didn't void the warranty. What an asinine policy by ASUS. There is no way the unlocked bootloader led to the touchscreen failing on my old TF700....no way!
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
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It is VERY lame. I sold my TF700 because of the slow I/O causing lag that I couldn't live with. Of course I had the bootloader unlocked, so the warranty was void. I divulged that info in the eBay auction for the most part (I didn't say the warranty was void because I didn't know that was the case. Ignorant, I know). Anyway, the new owner of my TF700 emailed me after a couple months asking me why ASUS was charging them $280 for fixing the faulty touchscreen. They said ASUS says it's not under warranty because of the unlocked bootloader. I felt bad for the new owners, having to fork out the money. They're $800 into the TF700 w/dock at this point.

So I would say: Think twice before unlocking the bootloader on the TF701, when custom-recovery even comes out for it.
Personally, with my TF701 that I ordered on newgg today, I am going to leave the bootloader locked for awhile. I can live with the stock ROM, hopefully with root access. Maybe after a few months I'll unlock the bootloader. It would be nice to do it in a way that didn't void the warranty. What an asinine policy by ASUS. There is no way the unlocked bootloader led to the touchscreen failing on my old TF700....no way!
Gee thanks for the advice. Lets just say for practicality so you know when I got my Xoom 2 days later I rooted it. Couple years later works fine just slow now so time for new one. I have 701 right now and its blazing fast.

2nd let me shine some advise for you. For starters you can't "root" a device with a locked bootloader. Requires altering the boot.img to tell system to boot up differently and allow you access to the "restricted" file system. To access the flash portion of that requires you to open it up. One way or another you will have to unlock the bootloader to root the device. I myself just want root, I want to just remove the unwanted junk and free up that wasted space and install ad blocking software.

What each person chooses to do with the root is up to them, regardless if Asus wants to void the warranty or not. Just need little common sense and know how to use google to figure what you want to do. If your to cautious to do that then I highly suggest not touching it and leave it as is. To me its never a "think twice" once you root and have full access to the product you bought, it makes the device so much better to use and gets rid of unwanted bloatware. Especially the ad blocking apps which helps on phone contracts with capped data helps keep your data way down since ads use a lot of data.
 

Danforth

Senior Member
Mar 18, 2012
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2nd let me shine some advise for you. For starters you can't "root" a device with a locked bootloader. Requires altering the boot.img to tell system to boot up differently and allow you access to the "restricted" file system. To access the flash portion of that requires you to open it up. One way or another you will have to unlock the bootloader to root the device. I myself just want root, I want to just remove the unwanted junk and free up that wasted space and install ad blocking software.
Your statements sound completely wrong to me. Of course you can root without unlocking the bootloader. I have rooted two phones and my TF201, all without unlocking; I rooted the TF201 soon after buying it, and only unlocked the bootloader more than a year later.

Rooting doesn't force you to forfeit warranty service, but unlocking does. (Note that you can unroot a device before sending it in for service, but you can't "relock" an unlocked device.) So it makes perfect sense as Snake suggests to hold off on unlocking, at least until you are sure all the hardware in your device is working perfectly.
 

Moscow Desire

Retired Senior Moderator
Update Amazon has shipped my new tablet so may be here tomorrow (i hope) if my new boot.img works and gives me root then I will pass it on, sadly though it won't be in a format in which you can just use a custom recovery, you have to flash it manually but if it works I will post how to flash it (all i need to remember is which tools to zip up in the entire SDK) LOL.
You can use a windows app called Virtuous Ten Studio (created by Diamondback ) Senior Mod and RD. It'll unpack your boot.img to allow editing ramdisk. Heck, it'll also de-odex, decompile apks with built in support for most API levels in a windows UI. No need to mess with apktools and such.

Free version in the XDA forums. Think you have to install latest MS .Net though. Can't remember. Give it a go. If you're a ROM cooker, it's a must.

An unlocked bootloader is usually 90% of the battle when getting full root (full means system RW access). Locked bootloaders is why rooting can involve finding exploits, which is why so many root apps are out there. Not saying what worked on the Acer 500/501, 510/511 and 700/701 tabs will work for the TF701, but it's worth investigating.
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
139
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You can use a windows app called Virtuous Ten Studio (created by Diamondback ) Senior Mod and RD. It'll unpack your boot.img to allow editing ramdisk. Heck, it'll also de-odex, decompile apks with built in support for most API levels in a windows UI. No need to mess with apktools and such.

Free version in the XDA forums. Think you have to install latest MS .Net though. Can't remember. Give it a go. If you're a ROM cooker, it's a must.

An unlocked bootloader is usually 90% of the battle when getting full root (full means system RW access). Locked bootloaders is why rooting can involve finding exploits, which is why so many root apps are out there. Not saying what worked on the Acer 500/501, 510/511 and 700/701 tabs will work for the TF701, but it's worth investigating.
Thanks for the windows tip but I use VMware with Ubuntu installed and have my harddrive mapped as network drive to transfer files between. Much easier this way. I will check out the program though may need it for some APK altering of certain app (I hope).
 

Moscow Desire

Retired Senior Moderator
Thanks for the windows tip but I use VMware with Ubuntu installed and have my harddrive mapped as network drive to transfer files between. Much easier this way. I will check out the program though may need it for some APK altering of certain app (I hope).
Ha, I use a dual boot (win7 and Ubuntu). Old lappy didn't run too well with VM. :eek: Need any help, shoot me a PM. Will share what I know.

There's a few other things you can do im Ramdisk, like increase read ahead cache, run a service to update lto.dat automatically (GPS) and a few others.

I only boot to win7 when I want to unpack/repack and boot images when I do kernel builds. (I'm lazy)

MD
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
139
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Ha, I use a dual boot (win7 and Ubuntu). Old lappy didn't run too well with VM. :eek: Need any help, shoot me a PM. Will share what I know.

There's a few other things you can do im Ramdisk, like increase read ahead cache, run a service to update lto.dat automatically (GPS) and a few others.

I only boot to win7 when I want to unpack/repack and boot images when I do kernel builds. (I'm lazy)

MD
Yeah that works just pain to have to shut down windows to boot ubuntu. My PC is a power house, set VMware with 4gb of RAM and still not slowing my PC down LOL.
 

Tiger62651

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
139
15
0
Westminster
well new tablet in and little troubleshooting seems problem is bad charge cable, new one starts to charge 1/2 way in, other little flaky. but even new tablet fresh out of box wont let me unlock it so asus tw asked for screen shot of my ids, waiting reply.
 
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