yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus S General] nmoreman:
I want to thank you, these are great instructions so far. I have been trying for days, got my phone unlocked by a mistake, had to Odin back (came from Epic so know and love that system), but it stayed unlocked.

I cannot get it rooted. Used your instructions and get to second part - cannot install fasboot recovery.

My files are in tools listed as recovery-clockwork-3.1.0.1-crespo4g. I ran fastboot, came up with a large square of instructions, not ok, with command and option. So I tried again. nothing

Then went to phone with it connected, tried to select from card the su file. It goes to yellow triangle and finally get back to a reboot.

I am so close, can you help with what I am doing wrong? It is not rooted and cannot get it to do anything.
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
MAKE SURE IT IS UNLOCK BY TYPING

FASTBOOT OEM UNLOCK

JUST TO BE SURE ITS UNLOCKED.

to open the command prompt for fastboot when you see the tools folder in android sdk folder hold shift, right click on tools folder and choose option "open comand prompt here"

first use the recovery3101.img i provided. Flash that by typing

fastboot flash recovery recovery3101.img

command prompt will say flash ok...look at your phone..scroll down to recovery option and hit the power button..should load you into clockwork recovery....let me know if you get that far..
[Nexus S General] oubravs2b:
There are 64-bit drivers - make sure you're using those and not the 32 bit. Get 'em here

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=878786
[Nexus S General] nmoreman:
THANK YOU, IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like you said, read and re-read. I have spent days on this, did learn a lot, and it took rereading your instructions to be sure the zip was in the Tools Folder.

I had downloaded sdk, tried, deleted, read more, downloaded and have 2 seperate files, these instructions picked up the right one, I followed and kept copying and tweaking. Renaming the 3.1.0.1 to 3101 helped me find it and get it to work.

Very good, simple instructions, everyone read and heed:D
[Nexus S General] DarkManX4lf:
Yeah I have 64 bit drivers installed.

I did get it to work. I reinstalled android sdk and it worked as stated in the first post.
[Nexus S General] westinl:
OSX!

Can someone create a dead simple Mac guide? Thanks! :)
[Nexus S General] asaetern:
Thank you for the write up. Will definitely use this when I feel the need to root. Keeping it stock for now.
[Nexus S General] Tweetsmack:
I can't get it to work...Considering the phone doesn't have an SD card, I just put the superuser.zip on the usb memory. When I power off then hold volume down and power, my phone just boots up like normal and nothing happens....help?
[Nexus S General] DarkManX4lf:
Its volume up and power.

The OP should fix that in the first post.
[Nexus S General] Tweetsmack:
Ahh, I see, thank you. What I can't figure out now, is where is this tools folder you're talking about that I open the cmd prompt to?
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Inside your android sdk folder..wherever you installed it....mine is under the c drive....
[Nexus S General] Tweetsmack:
Sorry for my stupid questions. I feel dumb, but I realize now that android sdk is something that I should already have installed >.< thanks for helping me though! :)
[Nexus S General] herbthehammer:
Doesn't the phone get entirely wiped clean and back to stock, including the "sd card", when you unlock? If that is true, you should copy the superuser file to the phone after you unlock it. I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm wrong.
[Nexus S General] supercluver:
I literally just did this and you are correct. Also, after unlocking and then flashing 3.1.0.1 clockwork recovery, the recovery for me is staying. It doesn't appear to be getting replaced.
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Some have reported sdcard erase and recovery staying..this is not always the case.updated guide to reflect for people that have sdcard formating....i advise to reflash clockwork JUST IN CASE as you can never be too careful..thanks for the input though.
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
thanks! after fiddling around with the drivers, it worked for me. but i got into bootloader by holding volume up + power. your instructions says hold volume down + power.
[Nexus S General] rillo561:
Thanks for posting this guide, I'm a noob to Android and this was easy to follow. However I'm kinda lost on what to do next, I've already downloaded the Rom manager but where do I get the different themes? Any help would be great! Thanks!
[Nexus S General] bigcee1:
error: cannot load 'recovery3101.img'

I followed the instructions and am stuck getting the error in the title when running the fastboot flash recovery3101.img command. HELP, how do I get past this.

Sprint Nexus S 4G
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
Are u putting in "fastboot flash recovery recovery3103.img"? I initially put "fastboot flash recovery3103.img" and it didn't work until I put the extra "recovery" in the command.

Edit: oops I meant 3101, not 3103
[Nexus S General] bigcee1:
error: cannot load 'recovery3101.img'

I finally got past this by putting the recovery3101.img in the tools folder.
[Nexus S General] uansari1:
Not new to Android or rooting, but new to the Nexus S. Isn't there a rooting method that doesn't require unlocking the bootloader?
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
I'm not sure, but it makes sense that you would have to unlock bootloader as you are trying to get root access. You don't have full root access if you can't mess with the bootloader right? Just my thoughts, maybe someone can chime in.
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
I don't think there's much or any custom roms at all for the nexus s 4g yet. Just give it some time and some devs would start cooking some. However there are a few cool things you can start doing now with root access, just search the forums for it.
[Nexus S General] uansari1:
Not true..us Nexus One users can get full root without unlocking the bootloader. It's not a big deal..just nice for the picky ones among us who don't want to see that open padlock on boot.
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
You're right, was doing some reading on that just now.
[Nexus S General] herbthehammer:
Different hardware man. You have htc, these are samsung. Some need to be unlocked to root and/or custom recovery, some don't. My evo and evo shift were similar. My moment and epic were kinda similar. My ns4g is slightly different than all of them.
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Why does it matter about unlocking bootloader..simple command....to relock just type

fastboot oem lock
[Nexus S General] p00kienrayray:
doesnt matter to me, but its still nice to know how to do it.
[Nexus S General] keebler021:
I'm sure I'm missing something monumentally easy, but I have not been able to get this to work at all. When typing in the command for fastboot devices, nothing comes up.

-Installed drivers manually. Even moved them directly to the driver folder myself after a few failed times just in case there was something I was missing.

-Downloaded PDAnet. Have uninstalled and reinstalled once to be on the safe side.

-Updated my SDK, downloaded absolutely everything that the SDK Manager offered.

-Restarted my computer about 5 times

My computer has recognized the Nexus in fastboot and there's no yellow exclamation points in my Device Manager. PDANet also offers to connect to it when I plug it in, so it doesn't seem like it's a device to computer connection issue.

I've been through the thread and I can't figure this out.

Very confused.

Edit:

Scratch that! Fixed it. Installed the adb and fastboot folders mentioned at this thread (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=878786) instead and it worked for some odd reason. I had installed the drivers from that thread a while ago but hadn't tried the adb and fastboot folders :-)
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
Yes, but it doesn't work for everyone.

The method in Jonathon Griggs' guide uses

<fastboot boot recovery.img>

instead of

<fastboot oem unlock> and

<fastboot flash recovery recovery.img>.

JGriggs reported that it stopped working after 2.3.2. I tried it, and it does not work on the NS4G with 2.3.4.
[Nexus S General] deeren:
This worked and will work only for those with the old bootloader. Google fixed this with the new bootloader. So fastboot OEM unlock is needed now!

You can still lock it back after you have flashed everything you needed
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Be careful when relocking the bootloader as with this phone some important files are stored there which aren't found in the kernal or rom....weird i know...htc was straight forward but samsung has tweaked this phone weirdly...
[Nexus S General] sh4nk:
I haven't attempted to root anything since my old Hero, but I'm glad to see that it looks fairly simple to root my ns4g. Dumb question, but since its a google phone, and we get updates straight from google instead of sprint, do we still get those updates while rooted? Sorry for the n00b question!!!
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
If you keep the stock rom, you will get ota updates. If you switch to a custom rom, you probably won't. Custom roms often disable ota updates, since they have a tendency to break root (and replace your custom hotness with the updated stock rom).
[Nexus S General] kegacide:
so no set answer on if this will erase my SD card or not....

for some it did, and some it didn't?
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
just in case backup your sd card on your computer so if it does wipe you still have everything......
[Nexus S General] supercluver:
Mine was erased. I'd definitely backup before just to be safe.
[Nexus S General] info[]box1:
First thanks for providing this rooting guide for nexus s 4g.

I'm not new to rooting and this should be and looks simple enough.

Quick question..

Is it possible to use amon ra recovery instead of clockwork mod recovery? Just curious.

I have never used clockwork recovery or rom manager. Is it very similar?
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
Yes. will wipe everything on the phone, including the sd card.

The good news is, backing up the sd is a breeze with usb2.0. I backed up 4 gigs in about 5 minutes. (!)

As far as I know, amon ra has not built a recovery for this phone. And I can tell you from experience that flashing a recovery not made for your phone is not a good idea. :-p
[Nexus S General] evantribley:
Need some help

Followed everything as listed to the T and everything seemed to be going fine. Went to reboot device after completing install of superuser.zip and my phone is stuck in a boot loop on the nexus splash screen.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: Used Odin to reflash stock image and I was able to get the Nexus to boot. I will try this over again and post results.

UPDATE 2: flashed recovery3101.img again, applied superuser.zip again and then rebooted. Success this time. Don't know what the hell I did the first time but glad I got it to work. Thanks OP for root/unroot method!
[Nexus S General] sunder74:
For unrooting I have a simple way back for those who made a nandroid of their stock rom. Simply restore your stock rom use a file explorer with root privileges(I use root explorer) navigate to system/app delete the su.apk. Then use the ops stock recovery, flash via fastboot and finally fastboot OEM lock and you're sorted.
[Nexus S General] uansari1:
Can you link to how you used odin to flash the stock image please?
[Nexus S General] PRBajista:
It worked!!!

Took a little tweaking in the enviormental variables for my pc, but after that it was smooth sailing. My first time rooting using sdk so it was nerve racking for me as I just got this NS4G yesterday. Didnt want to brick my phone before I even got to use it. Thanks OP for the instructions. Great job as usual to all contributers to XDA including the OP.
[Nexus S General] sh4nk:
Thanks for the info! I'm rather content with the stock rom, as I would still like to get the OTA updates from Google for the new software. But, there really are some great roms out there that I'd like to try. I guess I could always do a backup and revert back to the stock rom before the OTA updates are due out?
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
I have a rom for the NS4G i made called Gerbal..its 100% stock...just optimized...and you will get updates so be careful before you installed them as some can break root..

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1084907
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Dude thats the 2nd part to the opening post..unroot and stock..follow that and you will be completely backto stock without root.
[Nexus S General] mikeyinid:
Edited, will let the man do his thing...
[Nexus S General] mwalt2:
You should really fix this in your first post. It's bad to have something like how to get into bootloader wrong :).
[Nexus S General] mikeyinid:
Theres a couple things in the OP that make this hareder than it should be. Mr. kimmel, you should go to the links I posted above and fix yours to match, those methods work very well...
[Nexus S General] kpkimmel:
Nothing in my post says volume down + power....also this worked for me...worked for other having problems with other root....so i won't change it....
[Nexus S General] mikeyinid:
OK, fair enough. Glad to see people helping :)
[Nexus S General] agel1:
can somebody tell me what is the function of the "recovery image" in this tutorial

im asking because in other site say if you don't do the following the recovery image won't load everytime u reboot your nexus s

---------------

adb shell

cd etc

mount -o rw,remount /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

mv install-recovery.sh install-recovery-no.sh

that will mount the system as writable and rename the file that overwrites the recovery image on reboot so that our custom recovery will stay

--------------

thanks
[Nexus S General] moises1204:
where are the unrooting files at?
[Nexus S General] zephiK:
right there...
[Nexus S General] moises1204:
i tought that was the rooting file? because when i extracted it only shows 2 files the super user and reccovery3101.img file, i do not see any tar files in there.
[Nexus S General] grifforama:
+1 no Odin or tar files in the root zip.
[Nexus S General] cadams14:
Need Stock Recovery image. If anyone can help me out. That would be great. Thanks!

Sorry, its for NEXUS S 4G the SPH-D720
[Nexus S General] techguy378:
There should be a file called "unroot.7z" in the zip file. This is the file you need to extract if you want to unroot your device. Google the program 7-Zip to extract.
[Nexus S General] tigergoalie7:
Trouble Rooting NS4G

I've followed all steps to the letter about five times trying to get my Nexus rooted. Successfully unlocked the bootloader, installed Clockworkmod and recovery.img but after the phone power cycles it always gets hung up on the Google splash screen with the open padlock.

I've got to go back into recovery and install clockworkmod again to access my personal files, run Odin and revert it to stock. Is there something I'm missing or is there just a different version of the phone out that I'm lucky enough to have that can't be rooted using this method?

Any help in the matter would be greatly appreciated!
[Nexus S General] techguy378:
When unrooting the Nexus S 4G with Odin which driver in particular do I install? I'm trying to go back to stock Android from Cyanogenmod. When my phone is in Download mode, 64-bit Windows 7 detects my phone as a "Gadget Serial Device". Pdanet tries to install unsigned drivers. These don't work in 64-bit Windows. Help?
[Nexus S General] techguy378:
Anyone? What driver does "Gadget Serial Device" need? Help? Is there a way to revert to stock Android without Odin? The OP seems to have left out a very critical piece of information. The Samsung Galaxy S phones had a special Modem driver for their download modes. The Galaxy S modem driver doesn't work with the Nexus S. Neither Google or Samsung seem to have the proper driver for download mode.
[Nexus S General] michaelpeerman:
can you move this to the nexus s 4g forum. The only reason i found it is cause i used google search
[Nexus S General] Joey_UFC:
when i plug my phone into usb while the download sign is on and click start on odin nothing happens. it starts and ends instantly.

the log shows

OSM all threads completed (succeed 0/ Fail 0)
[Nexus S General] allovertheplace:
good but for a noob too complex

I can tell this is a very good method just by reading other responses from other users. BUT for me (noob) it isn't very helpful there are many keywords i don't understand can you simplify the tutorial please. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
[Nexus S General] boodo31:
Thanks for all you help!!!!!!
[Nexus S General] forpulse:
hey i followed the unrooting guide and after clicking on start in odin it did its thing for a little while and it failed. Now the phone is stuck on the yellow triangle downloading screen. here is the image. . PLEASE HELP. IM About to cry!!!
[Nexus S General] churro7:
does this erase the phone?
[Nexus S General] djchad72:
Is there a way to do this without a Windows PC? Trying to avoid installing windows 7 via Bootcamp to just root my phone.
[Nexus S General] nadroj71:
hey i was wondering if anyone could help me out. i need a nandroid backup of cyanogenmod 7 for the nexus s. i lost mine when i re unlocked the bootloader and now i cant do anything on my phone without it. it constantly has no signal and it wont even download from the market so if someone could help me out that would be great.
[Nexus S General] AllGamer:
now this is a good topic worth sticking... :)
[Nexus S General] chris_zx2:
Ok guys I'm super new to this and have been searching all day. I got a Nexus S with Videotron here in Canada. It is the I9020T I made the mistake of trying to root it which brought me to the google logo loop.

I then panicked and followed the unrooting process to fix the phone.

When I ran Odin with the package supplied the Radio failed.

The phone will now boot up, however, the signal bar is grey'd out with an x which I'm assuming is because I have no radio.

I should also mention my phone is 3g and the odin package is 4g which I'm assuming is one of the reasons it did not work.

I would just like to know what to do to bring the whole thing back to stock. I have tried the bootloader recovery but it just gives me the android guy with a triangle and an exclamation point inside.

I have also tried factory reset and another odin package which just hangs.

Could someone please tell me exactly what to do as this is a work phone, and I'm in a lot of trouble if I can't fix it.

I beg you please help before work tomorrow!!

Thanks guys,

Chris
[Nexus S General] Suffocate:
I have the same issue as Chris. I'm bought my 3g nexus s from Fido in Canada. I followed the unrooting steps and turn my phone into a sprint 4g nexus s. Now I can't do anything other than using wi-fi. Is there any ways to reverse the whole thing? I need to send my phone back to repair for some other issues.
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
Flashing a gsm ROM might do the trick. Try this
[Nexus S General] kymira:
Im a newb to rooting in general. Im just curious, when you guys say "sd card" what do you guys mean since there's no physical sd card slot on the nexus s?
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
A 13 GB partition of the internal flash memory is mounted as /sdcard for compatibility with the Android system.
[Nexus S General] kymira:
thanks for answering my question Max ;)
[Nexus S General] Oscar0717:
When I try to fastboot it it tells me it couldn't...followed steps thouroughly, did I miss something?:confused:
[Nexus S General] Maximilian Mary:
Couldn't what, exactly?

With the phone in fastboot mode (it will say so) type

fastboot devices

What does it say?
[Nexus S General] hashim0913:
my phone wont boot up after root so i think its bricked. so i put it in download mode so i can use odin but the computer and odin cant detect it. please help.
[Nexus S General] rtp20in:
Is it powering on or completely dead? Can you get into boot loader?
[Nexus S General] Breakthecycle2:
Question, When I download the unroot files (even though it says root.zip) I see no tar files. Am I missing something?
[Nexus S General] nikola25:
when I type fastboot oem unlock i get the message fastboot is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Any idea where my issue might be? I've done the PDAnet thing to get the drivers several times but this is still happening.
[Nexus S General] strifejester:
Is the fastboot.exe in the folder where ADB is? Fastboot does not come with sdk you must download it.
[Nexus S General] xjerlzx:
OTA

sorry but will i be able to recieve OTA updates after this root?
[Nexus S General] Heretic Infidel:
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us in such a good and readable post!
[Nexus S General] JUSMEJOSE:
ok i got everything but when i holf volume down & up then press power it goes to "Unlock BootLoader"screen
[Nexus S General] ikawka:
very helpful, tnx
[Nexus S General] nmoreman:
I need help. I have followed these great directions before and never had this happen.

I unlocked and rooted my daughters phone last evening. I did not back everything up on computer - specifically pictures.

The phone lost everything on the sd cards - all her pictures! -also app I used to restore (different from titanium since she wasn't rooted) brought back nothing nor did google backup from cloud.

She is very upset about pics, the other is a time consuming nuisance. I did read in first post that some report loss of info on sd (again, probably done 10 phones, never happened and of course the first time I didn't copy to desktop) and tha tis. Old be fixed by putting super user back on card.

Could anyone help me with this? App is on phone, is there data there that could be captured?

I promised to push the thanks button as many time as possible door any help!!
[Nexus S General] fr3dw4rd:
Very helpful, thank you!
[Nexus S General] Rabbit_52:
thank you to share~
[Nexus S General] TudorBlue:
Will this work for the 4g only OR can I use it on my Nexus S i9023? Also, Im looking for a decent rom which is stable and hopefully bug free. Can anyone point me in the right direction??
[Nexus S General] GaryDaNail:
helped me alot :D
[Nexus S General] tupac19861013:
I'll look into this when I have some spare time.
[Nexus S General] zlwu:
nexusshacks dot com has many good instructions on how to unlock/lock, root/unroot.
[Nexus S General] qaz2453:
will this work on nexus s i9020T with official 4.0.3?
[Nexus S General] calisoldier83:
I kept loosing recovery for some reason, so I had to the following: Install Root Explorer from the market and delete /system/recovery-from-boot.p *Mount as R/W first*.

That should fix it. Now reinstall recovery and then update with rom manager.
[Nexus S General] lanwellon:
Good post ! Very Thanks for that !!
[Nexus S General] gie666:
how to lock oem?
[Nexus S General] vijaydj:
I am unable to install PDAnet, as it fails to detect my android phone. So ODIN doesn detect my phone in the downloading mode.

Kindly help if there is a workaround.
[Nexus S General] docbarretta:
I am trying to Unroot my phone using this but when I unzip the files, I don't see any .tar files! Where can I get them?! I need to go back to stock ROM to get the OTA update
[Nexus S General] nmoreman:
A couple of hints for you guys above

If Odin doesn't work, try another cable and try a different usb port. And sometimes it helps to pull the battery, then plug in the phone (I just had to

do this), the battery removed can make a difference.

And if you are trying to go back to stock, look in Android Central in Nexus S4g forums under hacks/rooting section. There is an Odin method there that will install 4.0.4, removes root. This is an alternative, full stock and should allow OTA's to roll thru.

To relock, just start adb, type fastboot oem lock, should be completed in less than 2 seconds.

I just did this to my phone to send back to Assurion. They shouldn't question ics when it is locked and unrooted because this is a leaked rom that doesn't require these maneuvers to install.
[Nexus S General] eemannan:
Very helpful, thanks.
[Nexus S General] smarty.rockz:
Will this work on Nexus S[I9020t]??