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Procedure to Root Droid X Revealed

- By - Source : Tom's Guide US

A group of modders have found a way to disable Motorla's hardware-based lock.

Launch reviews faulted the Droid X's bloatware. It's "littered with widgets, oodles of little programs—the vast majority of which you probably don't want or need," complained Gizmodo. Worse, the relatively common method of "rooting" the phone caused the it to stop working.

At the center of the whole issue is the Droid X's eFuse chip, which temp-bricks the phone if it detects the user attempting to boot the device with third-party firmware. Needless to say, most in the modding community weren't happy about the hardware component. Drawing from the experience from users who've managed to trick other Android devices however, it was a matter of time until someone found a way to defeat Motorola's best attempts to maintain smartphone "purity".

A video outlining the entire rooting process is below. Full text instructions are available here. Keep in mind that rooting the Droid X—like any other smartphone—will most likely void its warranty.

How to Root Your Droid X

Update: Some warnings on rooting your Droid X.

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Fibrizo 07/23/2010 9:19 PM
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That will teach them, People wants unlocked phones.

Open Source FTW

shloader 07/23/2010 9:21 PM
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Ya just don't take an OS developed on the ideal of openness and try to lock it down, especially if it's a hot phone like the Droids seem to be. You're just pissing money away on security. Motorola kinda deserved this at least a little.

sliem 07/23/2010 9:24 PM
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Open Source FTW

figgus 07/23/2010 9:25 PM
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It was foolish of Motorola to lock this phone down at Verizon's request, but Verizon gimps ALL their phones (too bad their service is so good around here).

Incidentally, I think this sort of thing is why Google never sullied the Nexus1 by bringing it to Verizon. Big Red probably wanted the OS locked down tight.

IFLATLINEI 07/23/2010 9:30 PM
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Shame on both Verizon and Motorola. Wasting cash. Its been proven time and time again. The hacking community will always find a way. There is nothing these big companies can do to stop it. I dont know why they even bother.

TheDuke 07/23/2010 9:46 PM
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i hate bloatware with a passion

gwolfman 07/23/2010 10:00 PM
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Thumbs up to all the comments above ^^^^^

Sabiancym 07/23/2010 10:04 PM
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This is just rooting....it's not getting past the boot loader. So there will still be no custom ROMs yet.

Anonymous 07/23/2010 10:24 PM
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Rooting the phone has NOTHING to do with the EFuse. Come on TH. Do your research.

chris13th 07/23/2010 10:25 PM
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Motorla?

Anonymous 07/23/2010 11:38 PM
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Seems like the author of this post either has no clue or is purposefully engaged in spreading FUD. The eFuse chip in the Droid X was never programed to "brick" the phone; it is there to prevent unsigned ROMs from booting on the phone. If a person decides to load a custom ROM not approved by Motorola - then the phone will keep booting to the recovery console until a signed ROM is restored. "Rooting" the phone on the other hand just enables root access for the underlying Linux OS - it does not change the ROM in anyway. Once a user has root access they can "brick" their phones by deleting necessary files. If and when a the signing requirement is bypassed or cracked - then people will be able to load custom ROMs. This rumor that a rooting of the Droid X results in a bricked phone was started a forum poster that did not have access to the Droid X but went off what a "buddy" of his told him. This buddy supposedly saw phones bricked by rooting and/or custom ROM attempts.

cj_online 07/24/2010 12:09 PM
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wtf? am i the only one who doesn't quite get this? Since when are Android phones so uptight about modding ie thirdparty/open source software... seems a bit hypocritical ...

fulle 07/24/2010 2:04 AM
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Locking down the OS is actually just good business.

Look, I don't know how to put this but... I have a nice setup with my Droid, with a beastly OC, all the bloatware removed, and with many interesting apps that people here would probably find very useful... but when I run into someone on the street, the #1 question about my phone is: "Holy crap! When you move the phone, the lady's breasts giggle! How can I make my phone do that?!" I'm not exaggerating either, the other night I was playing a little pool in the bar, while like 4 girls huddled around my phone taking turns shaking it.

That's the audience they design the devices for. Not us. The "OMG, they wiggle!, I need to buy a Droid now!" idiot general public.

shloader 07/24/2010 6:14 AM
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You say that but you offer no real supporting argument. Good business for who? Their sources of sponsored apps? I'll try and better explain my stance on this. I see the Android OS much along the same lines as I see Ubuntu. I think the two are somewhat comparable, maybe even very comparable. They're open operating systems and were presented to the masses as a stark contrast to closed proprietary systems in existence. If a vendor came along with a netbook sporting very attractive specs but only the vendor's specially tailored version of Ubuntu Netbook would install I would say that vendor's attitude is beyond arrogant if it thought its lockout would not be eventually defeated. Now I understand that this could never happen with Ubuntu because of its community participation where Android is a Google specific development. With that in mind I'm sure Google told vendors like Motorola and HTC that they could lock down their phones. I also understand that leaving things completely open makes the phone manufacturers little more than hardware vendors. However Google didn't just try to market this OS to vendors, they marketed it to us. They had to. Vendors wanted to see Google hype up the end users so selling the phones would be easy. In doing so they heavily emphasized the openness of their OS to the point that locking the phones seems contradictory to their ideals... and I think vendors are very aware of this perception of openness.

So fulle, I understand that the idiotic general public may be the lions share of sales however that doesn't discount Motorola's awareness of the educated consumers, too, else they wouldn't exert near the effort to lock it. And they probably did make a necessary effort to lock the phone to appease Verizon and sponsors, fine, good for business. But they also have to expect that it will be defeated.

scook9 07/24/2010 6:52 AM
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The idiots may be the majority, but they also all listen to us, the very loud nerds ;)

pirateboy 07/24/2010 8:25 AM
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open sores ftw

eddieroolz 07/24/2010 9:46 AM
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See Motorola, it only took a team of hackers a week or two. Meanwhile all you got was severe backlash from the tech and open-source community for going against the entire premise of open source.

Camikazi 07/24/2010 3:02 PM
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cj_online :
wtf? am i the only one who doesn't quite get this? Since when are Android phones so uptight about modding ie thirdparty/open source software... seems a bit hypocritical ...


Since Verizon got their hands on one, they like to lockdown and control everything that goes on their phones.

anamaniac 07/24/2010 11:07 PM
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Shloader :
You say that but you offer no real supporting argument. Good business for who? Their sources of sponsored apps? I'll try and better explain my stance on this. I see the Android OS much along the same lines as I see Ubuntu. I think the two are somewhat comparable, maybe even very comparable. They're open operating systems and were presented to the masses as a stark contrast to closed proprietary systems in existence. If a vendor came along with a netbook sporting very attractive specs but only the vendor's specially tailored version of Ubuntu Netbook would install I would say that vendor's attitude is beyond arrogant if it thought its lockout would not be eventually defeated. Now I understand that this could never happen with Ubuntu because of its community participation where Android is a Google specific development. With that in mind I'm sure Google told vendors like Motorola and HTC that they could lock down their phones. I also understand that leaving things completely open makes the phone manufacturers little more than hardware vendors. However Google didn't just try to market this OS to vendors, they marketed it to us. They had to. Vendors wanted to see Google hype up the end users so selling the phones would be easy. In doing so they heavily emphasized the openness of their OS to the point that locking the phones seems contradictory to their ideals... and I think vendors are very aware of this perception of openness. So fulle, I understand that the idiotic general public may be the lions share of sales however that doesn't discount Motorola's awareness of the educated consumers, too, else they wouldn't exert near the effort to lock it. And they probably did make a necessary effort to lock the phone to appease Verizon and sponsors, fine, good for business. But they also have to expect that it will be defeated.


Freedom and openness may be a pipe dream in reality, but it's a dream worth fighting for.
Sure, the bulk of consumers aren't affected, but guess what, many still are.
It was like me buying a PSPgo at release thinking they'd crack it in a week. The thing is useless without custom firmware. :(

I intend to buy a phone straight up cash and unlocked. I damn well better have the thing fully unlocked, or I'm sticking with my dumbphone that tells time and makes calls.

ksampanna 07/25/2010 9:05 PM
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Hah! You just cannot pin down those guys.

matt87_50 07/26/2010 1:25 AM
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Fibrizo :
That will teach them, People wants unlocked phones.Open Source FTW



I don't see what this necessarily has to do with open source?

except the actual hack of course, its open source, brought to us not because they want money, but because they want what's right.