My firsthand experience with Android rooting

My firsthand experience with Android rooting

Recently, I got a gift from a friend. It was a new Amazfit smartwatch. I was super excited as I had been planning to buy one and there I had it. But, there was one twist. The language of the watch was in Chinese. After hours of research and Google live translation, I figured out that there was no option to change the language within the settings of the watch for that specific ROM. So, I was left with one last option - Root the watch, install a different ROM and then change the language. But, the challenge here was - I had never done any of this before. It was "IRRITATING" to have the watch and not being able to use it. This post will walk you through the basics of rooting and how you could successfully do it for any of your old phones may be.

What is rooting? Rooting is the process of allowing users of the Android mobile operating system to attain privileged control (known as root access) over various Android subsystems. As Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, rooting an Android device gives similar access to administrative (superuser) permissions as on Linux or any other Unix-like operating system such as FreeBSD or macOS.

Things I installed before starting
ADB Driver

I won't be describing the steps I followed, but the challenges I faced.

  1. Every time I'd try to run the command "fastboot bootloader", it would give me the error "Waiting for Device". The underlying issue was the issue with my computer's USB Driver. Downloading and installing the latest USB driver did the trick.

  2. I installed the wrong ROM :D : Before installing, make sure that you have the right ROM. I got my ROM from https://www.xda-developers.com/. I picked the ROM for Amazfit Stratos, but a different version. This ended up freezing my phone. I'll tell you how I fixed it.

  3. Not all unresponsive screens are bricked devices : When my phone crashed, I thought I lost my watch and nothing could be done further. I thought it was bricked as the screen was blank. But, I noticed that my watch was being detected when plugged in to my laptop. So, good news, it wasn't bricked. Moral of the story: Don't panic too soon.

  4. Factory reset before re-installation : After Step 2, I downloaded the right ROM and tried installing it. But, that didn't work and was giving me different errors. To fix it, I did a simple step of factory reset and then retried. After that, the installation happened in a flash

  5. Wait before you press keys: The process of flashing takes time and there'll be a time when you'll think your device is stuck as there won't be any message on the screen and the CMD will not show any message either. I forced reset my watch during those times, thinking it's stuck again. But, the trick was to just wait.

I hope you found this useful. Do let me know in the comment section below about how was your experience with your first rooting.

Reference:

  1. Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooting_(Android))