[Upgrading, Modifying and Unlocking] superpizon:
Preamble

What I write here is what I did. BUT I am not responsible of damages you could do your phones. Be careful and safe. If you do not know what you are doing, do not do this.

This is not a method to unbrick your phone. Unfortunately, I did not succeed to do that. It is a method to unroot: to cleanse any trace of rooting. In my case, it was to give it back to my store.

The rooting method I used is the "Universal Gingerbread Root (by StoneBoyTony)" I found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1192122 (scroll down a bit). This method is to root your Gingerbread phone through the recovery mode by unpacking a zip file (keep this file in mind).

Thus, this tutorial is concerning this rooting method.

I did not try with other rooting methods. So take care.

something to write

is what you have to type.

is what you should read at your side.

Read before writing. Like students (should) do in classes.

My computer runs Windows XP SP3. Just saying.

This is my first thread. Please, be cool with me :)

Finally, do not confuse rooting and unlocking.

To root a phone is to allow the user to be a super-user on the phone, which means: to have greeeaaaat powers.

To unlock means to use any carrier with the phone

by getting the unlock code

.

Hence, to get the unlock code, you often have to root your phone to access to sensible data (cf. stl5 story).

I - Introduction

(= useless blabla but informative)

I bought some Samsung Gio cellphones (Bell prepaid, Canada) at a pretty good price ($80, thanks redflagdeals for the deal!), in order to go with another carrier (Chatr).

Characteristics of the Bell's Samsung Gio prepaid cell:

For the first one, I retrieved the unlock code through what I call the "stl5 way". It worked without any issue. Cool. Next!

For the second one... Oh snap.

Issues began after getting the unlock code and a rebooting. Kinda weird since I exactly did like the first one. Problems were:

No sound at the Samsung animation

Too many minutes to initialize

When I could reach the pad to call a number, the pad was so laaaaggggyyyy

Fly mode is stuck

No more IMEI (nooooooooooooo)

Doing *#7465625# does not display any information about the network lock, sp/cp lock (it displays labels but no values at all)

Turning off the cellphone was very long too...

...but it was not a shutdown: the cellphone was rebooting, weird

Random warnings (even got a warning from "com.android.phone"!)

Putting another SIM card from another carrier did not even notice me to unlock the phone

And so on. Like some folks, I did not really brick it, but like some others, the phone became... unusable.

What I call the "stl5 way" is the unlocking method which can succeed... or not, it depends. Weird isn't it? Unfortunately, I didn't know.

xda and rfd links which explain the stl5 unlocking method:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1204705

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1192122

I absolutely advise against this method. BEWARE.

It seems that the /dev/stl5 partition is madly protected. When we use/read/smurf it, it corrupts some data of the phone which could lead to (partially) brick your phone.

Thus, the safest way (nobody failed) so far to unlock your phone is the "bml5 way":

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=17148825&postcount=334

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=17247878

II - Plat de résistance

Ok, you used the stl5 way and your phone just took 80yo: it is slow, forgot a lot of information, and some other symptoms I wrote earlier.

Or you just want to unroot your phone, because it's cool.

If there is still no method to unbrick (or it did not succeed), you can give it back to your store or to use the Samsung warranty. You may have to unroot it (get all chances on your side).

- Tools/weapons you will need:

Explanations:

We will use the "adb" program, in order to use the phone terminal. You can also use an embedded terminal (free ones in the android market) or through ssh. It's your call.

Go to : Menu -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging (green cross it). It will allow "adb" to be connected to the phone.

Download it here: www.samsung.com/ca/support/mobilesoftwaremanual/mobilesoftwaremanual.do?page=MOBILE.SOFTWARE.MANUAL

Kies is the iTunes-like by Samsung. This may be needed for your computer to detect your phone. But we do not need to launch it. Just install it but do not launch it while doing your stuff.

Step #1

In a Windows shell, go to your .\android-sdk\platform-tools directory (for the example: C:\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools>). Type:

> adb shell

This will link the computer to your phone and display a remote Android shell. At this point, you should see something like this:

($ is the prefix of the Android shell, do not type it)

(> is the one for the Windows shell, do not type it too)

Note : if your phone is not in debugging mode, the Windows shell will write:

Step #2

After madly browsing the xda method to unroot my phone, I found this post: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=17078367&postcount=34. Interesting.

If you open the Universal_GB_ROOT.zip file, you have:

If you did not notice, after rooting your phone, an unremovable application appeared in the menu application (the icon is a dead skull): this is the visible part of the iceberg that we want to remove.

Ok, your Android shell is waiting. Let's type:

$ ls /system/xbin

It should display:

Happenstance? I don't think so. Now type:

$ ls /system/app/S*.apk

(I wrote S*.apk to shorter this logfile).

Oh god, what did we see? The content of the Universal_GB_ROOT.zip file.

Step #3

What do we do now? Well, let's delete these files. Simply.

Good idea. But not so quick to do.

If you "rm" (*nix remove command) files we pointed at, the shell will answer:

Why? Type:

$ cat /proc/mounts

You should have (it depends of apps you installed):

As you can see (or guess ^^), /system (where apps are installed) is mounted as ro (read-only).

As you can wonder, there is a "trick" to bypass that. Go being super-user:

$ su

Then:

$ mount -o rw,remount /dev/stl12 /system

This command will remount /dev/stl12 to /system in rw (read-write).

Step #4

NOW, you can remove files. But please, do ONLY remove files of the Universal_GB_ROOT.zip file like this way:

$ rm /system/xbin/busybox
$ rm /system/xbin/sqlite3
$ rm /system/xbin/sh
$ rm /system/xbin/su-v1
$ rm /system/xbin/su-v2
$ rm /system/xbin/su-v3
$ rm /system/xbin/su
$ rm /system/app/Superuser.apk

(obviously, *nix folks would prefer to go into the xbin folder and remove each file to write less).

Remember: 7 files in the xbin/ folder and only one in the app/ folder.

And this is it! Now quit the su role:

$ exit

And the Android shell:

$ exit

You are now back to the Windows shell.

Note : we did not umount anything because it is not needed. We did a remount. Thus, the usual mount of /system/stl12 to /system will happen again at startup. No worries.

Reboot your phone and go back to the application menu. The unremovable root application disappeared! *clap clap*

III - Going further

Since this unrooting method works with the "Universal Gingerbread Root (by StoneBoyTony)" (as a recall, you will find here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1192122), this unrooting method may work on other devices (Mini, Ace, Pop, Fit) which have been rooted the same way.

Note we got access to the /system/app folder, where some unremovable applications of your carrier could be located. Take a look here. You will probably be able to remove them!

But you must root your phone :p