[Xoom Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rob_v:
I will admit - I am new to this tablet world. I love my xoom vs my daughters IPad. Been wanting to root it for a while - but honestly didnt have the time.

Had a few hours this evening and went about figuring out how to do it.

There are a ton of guides out there on how to do it, but they seem to leave out some key points that a rooting noob had to then work thru 15 pages to figure things out.

In anycase, I took the plunge today - took less than an hr b/c I was writing as I did it.

I'm a happy camper now!

This is written from the the POV of a complete xoom noob that wants to root their xoom.

Im hoping my frustration helps others out there.

Like I said, the guides out there are great - they just leave off a few key points.

First - to root the way I did it - you need an SD card.

They may be otheways to do it - but this is how I did it.

Second - if you do it and you break things - your fault - not mine....blahblahblah

Also, and this is stated a bunch - THIS WILL WIPE YOUR XOOM BACK TO FACTORY

To give credit, I followed solarnz guide here :

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=1242241

The step 1 Setting up adb and fastboot is not complete on his post, so I used this :

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=18072572&postcount=50

Downloaded the SDK_tools.zip file - unzip to a directory on your C drive and you off to the races.

Step 2 Downloading the rooting-update zip file.

Download it here :

http://goo.gl/Om9aP

Then just copy it to your SD card. DO NOT UNZIP it - just put it on there.

Then if its not there yet - put it into your XOOM

Step 3 - Flashing Recovery

Download the img file from here :

http://bit.ly/iLRAIV

and place it in the DIR were you unzipped the SDK_Tools

Now that you have everything in place - there is one thing to note.

You are going to be running commands on your PC -> taking to your xoom as well as doing some navigations on your Xoom.

For this to happen - you Xoom must be connected to the PC. (may be obvious to some - but for the rooting noobs - its not)

Once its connected and your machine sees it - on your XOOM go to settings->Applications->Development and your USB debugging should NOT be checked.

Now check it - let your machine "see" it again - then pop a command window on your PC.

Navigate to the dir that you unzipped the SDK_Tool.zip file to and in that CMD window type this :

adb kill-server (probably wont do anything - but just in case)

then type:

adb reboot bootloader

Your xoom will reboot and come up w/ a screen that says Starting Fastboot Protocol Support.

Once you see that - go to your PC and type:

fastboot oem unlock

You will get a screen on your Xoom that says a bunch of legal stuff.

Now on your XOOM Hit the VOL Down key to get to I Accept

Then hit VOL Up

It will say Are you sure....blahblahblah

Hit Vol Down to Yes

Then hit VOL Up

It then goes thru some Device unloc operation in progress - it takes about 20 secs - then says done and reboots.

Let it go thru the normal reboot - animation and whatnot

It will come back and now be wiped to factory.

This is what kind of has me stumped - I never had to type "fastboot reboot"

Your Xoom is now back to factory and waiting - hit next ->next->next till you get to the desktop

Then get to settings->applications->USB Debugging - its not checked - Check it

At this point I typed in the CMD window on my PC : fastboot reboot

and the Xoom rebooted - (Duuh)

Once it came up - back to the CMD on the PC and typed :

adb reboot bootloader

Now we are going to flash the img file downloaded earlier (recovery-Tiamat-R4c-100611-1150-cwm.img) be sure to move this to the same DIR as the adb and fastboot are in.

Then type :

fastboot flash recovery recovery-Tiamat-R4c-100611-1150-cwm.img

It will say some stuff on your PC as well as your XOOM

Once that is done - are are now going to flash with the ZIP file that is on your SD Card.

So reboot your device by holding volume up + power.

Once you see the Moto Logo - count to 3 - then hit volume down and you should now see "Android Recovery" in the top left corner.

If you dont - you were too quick - hit power+vol up again and try it again.

Once you see that - Hit volume up to boot into recovery.

It will then show some stuff and then you should see a screen that it titled ClockworkMod Recovery

If you see that - use vol down to navigate to install zip from SDCard and hit the power button

Then select choose ZIP from SDCard and hit power

Then select the Xoom-Universal-Root.zip file you downloaded.

The vol down to Yes and hit power

It should then install and say complete.

Navigate back to reboot system and hit power.

Congrats - you are now rooted.

Hope this helps some ppl.

Mods - I hope this is in the correct area.

Good luck!