[Android General] syserr:
I posted more on my FAQ... look at posts 2-5. It should start to answer some questions, but I realize it's not a step by step walk through. Please read it though.

There are many ways to root, many ways to install a custom Recovery, but...

Starting at the end... Foxtrot. I could make a SPFT-style Foxtrot ROM, but currently there is not one. You need a way to get Foxtrot on your device, so you need CWM (ClockWork Mod) Recovery.

Ways to get CWM Recovery....

1. use SP Flash Tool, open a scatter file, uncheck all sections in "Download" except Recovery, select the (alternative) CWM Recovery file, click download. But... this requires you to us SP Flash Tool and get VCOM drivers working. You can find these in my Tree of Tools https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8PcIZoLeGNuWS1JUnA2UXdPYUE&usp=sharing#list Check out my video here... the last few minutes install CWM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7m9UCM4-c

2. you can Root your stock ROM.... as of now it seems this requires a PC with ADB drivers working. (find ADB drivers in my Tree of Tools) MKDRT or 403root.zip can get you root. Then after being rooted, you can use MobileUncle to install the CWM recovery.

2b. you can Root with http://www.srsroot.com/ I believe too, but same goes, you have to get ADB working first. Then you'd use MobileUncle or some tool to flash recovery.

After you get CWM Recovery... it's fairly simple to get the custom ROMs installed. Check my FAQ to learn how to boot into (CWM) Recovery.

I wish there were easy ways. It's frustrating, I think it wouldn't be hard to build an app that would root, then install a recovery image of your choice. If I had a spare 15 hours or so... I would do it. There isn't much glory in making a root app for 4.0.3. hehehe 5 people would use it, ever.

(If anyone is a Linux user out there. The "seroot" tool that I made which is a kind of port from the 403root bat file works well. ADB under Linux requires basically no setup.)

---------- Post added at 11:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 PM ----------

Yeah, if you see nothing popup in Device Manager while doing a Preload/Meta mode boot -- I would agree that the USB port is damaged. Make sure you try one of the three method from my FAQ:

If you see unknown devices etc popup, then your USB port is working.

How I would approach writing software that roots it, because I don't know of any... would be to emulate the commands that 403root (.bat) did and that I converted to a bash script that I called "seroot". So I was thinking I could have an app run the commands that ADB would normally run, then reboot, run some more commands, reboot.... You might be able to cut up the seroot script in 3 pieces (reboots between each piece) and feed them to an app called GScript. Painful. I'm going to look at making my own app.

UPDATE:

I cut up my shell script into 3 and tried to run it with "Script Manager"... Script Manager is not the "shell" user it's sandboxed to a UID that is high. Apparently the ADB user "shell" has write access to /data, but other users/apps don't. Trying to figure out how to run commands as user "shell" but without running ADB. If you could do that, this path would work.