yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] SMagnolia:
Thank you for this. I just couldnt live without root!

Updated: Hopefully someone finds this helpful.

I had to replace my motherboard due to cooking my old one in a hot car during a golf outing. New used board from eBay was 4.4.2 official so lost my unlocked bootloader but oh well.

I could not get this ghettoroot to work on my old xp machine. It worked like a champ though on windows 7.

Here is exactly what I did:

1. Download ghettoroot-v0.2.2.zip from original post and extracted it to c:\ on win 7 machine. Did not download busy box as it is already showing in \files once extracted.

2. Plug in phone and made sure to go to developer options and give permission to always allow computer on phone when ticking on USB debugging (I did clear permissions first before re-allowing. The clearing setting is just below the allow USB debugging setting.) Made sure phone showed as "device" and not as "unauthorized" through adb devices command from pc.

3. Made sure phone was connected as a media device and not as installer on notification pull down on phone.

4. Ran cmd on win7 to pull up dos window and cd to ghettoroot directory where install.cmd is located and ran install.cmd.

5. Followed instructions on screen.

Root Success!!! Checked with root checker from play store for good measure and did battery pull and all just to make sure root stuck.

6. Froze all the knox apps with titanium backup. Was too nervous about trying the newest ghettoroot version that tries to remove knox.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I'm in exactly the same spot.

Things look as though they're going well. I get ADB running and then the wheels fall off as ADB does nothing but recite the help manpage. And there's this...

*** Could not push files.

*** Could not send preparation files!

/system/bin/sh: ./ghettoroot: not found

Yes, I've made sure the phone's out of USB installer mode, the RSA signature for the laptop is accepted (tried the "delete all" to force a new "accept this PC?" sequence), and the phone has just been reset (FDR). If I look for the phone in the directories, it's there. It just won't root.

This isn't my first root. I've had a couple of soft bricks in the past which remind me to RTFM. But this one...? Just not happenin'.

ADDED: Yes, this is an SCH-I605 and the build ends ND7.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] SMagnolia:
Just updated #523. Hope it helps.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
For some reason I can no longer connect to the phone. I can find it in File Explorer, but ghettoroot (0.2.2) can't find the phone. I cleared the PC permissions; I don't get "trust this PC?". I installed the Koush driver, although it's possible the Sammy drivers are keeping Koush from working. I'll look into that. Oh, and, yes, I put ghettoroot in c:\ghettoroot.

BTW, the quick way to start a CMD window in a given sub-directory (folder):

Go to the desired sub-directory with File Explorer
<SHIFT-Right-click> anywhere in a blank part of the FE window
<Click> on "Open command window here"

Easy-peasy. [/grin]
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
It appears that 0.2.2 just isn't going to fly. I tried to coerce the Koush drivers into running but, AFAIK, that's just not going to happen; the Sammy drivers persist in taking over.

I put 0.3.2 into c:\ghettoroot and I actually saw signs of life. Up to a point. And then the wheels fell off. Here's an excerpt from debug.txt:

The line "/data/local/tmp/ghetto/META-INF/com/google/android/update-binary-2[64]: unzip: not found" doesn't look good. And then it gets even uglier:

"Unable to chmod /tmp/supersu/arm/chattr: No such file or directory

Unable to chmod /tmp/supersu/arm/chattr.pie: No such file or directory"

And what is"[DEBUG] get_root:535: YOU ARE A SCARY DEVICE" all about???

The initial pushes look OK, but I wonder if the pushes really worked.

* Cleaned!
push: C:\ghettoroot\scripts\\..\files/UPDATE-SuperSU.zip -> /data/local/tmp/ghetto/UPDATE-SuperSU.zip
push: C:\ghettoroot\scripts\\..\files/root.sh -> /data/local/tmp/ghetto/root.sh
push: C:\ghettoroot\scripts\\..\files/ghettoroot -> /data/local/tmp/ghetto/ghettoroot
push: C:\ghettoroot\scripts\\..\files/busybox -> /data/local/tmp/ghetto/busybox
4 files pushed. 0 files skipped.
6082 KB/s (2429248 bytes in 0.390s)

*** Necessary files pushed and chmod'd.
Give it a brief moment or your device will be overwhelmed.

* Preparation files transferred!

One small question remains:

Now what?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] SMagnolia:
Did u try adb devices @ command prompt?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Doh! I should have thought of that. It may be the ADB in the 0.2.2 ghettoroot folder is a different rev. than in the 0.3.2 folder. Anyway, I'll try it.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
As I suspected, the adb in 0.2.2 can't see the phone while the adb (v 1.0.31) in 0.3.2 does see it.

Exactly why this is so is open for discussion.

ADDED:

Oh, jeeze... both adb's are v1.0.31 but with tools\adb.exe from 0.2.2, devices comes up empty, but with 0.3.2's tools\win\adb\adb.exe devices works. I killed the adb.exe process before trying another adb.exe. The adb daemon starts up each case. In short, adb looks OK but in one setting it can't see the phone, in another it can see the phone. Sigh...
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] SMagnolia:
Don't forget to set path to adb in your environment variables on pc?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I launched adb from the tools folder, which takes care of the environmental variables. Just for laughs and grins, I ran adb from my sdk installation. Different version, same results: the phone is found.

C:...sdk\platform-tools>adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
42f74c0c6fbeafc7 device

C:...sdk\platform-tools>adb version
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32

I'll do another FDR, and try yet again. But I ain't holdin' out much hope. I'm feeling too much like "Casey Jones, ridin' that train..." [/grin]
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Well, that was utterly useless.

In hopes of shifting the odds in my favor, I copied the adb from the SDK. The rev. is now 1.0.32. I set adb.exe to run as administrator. I tested it with "adb devices" and got back the phone's ID. I killed the adb process, ran install.cmd and... see above. The error messages are the same as before.

Is there either a good way to back up to 4.3, root, and return to 4.4.2 with root or a way to unlock this phone?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Is there a way to sideload either a rooted stock ROM or a rooted Lollipop?

---------- Post added at 10:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

Out of desperation, I moved the ghettoroot folder contents directly to c:\ and tried yet again. Debug.txt contains the same litany of failure quoted above.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
Have you tried extracting the ghettoroot files directly into the folder your adb is? That seemed to work for me with the last version of ghettoroot.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I think I did, but I'll try it again.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I'M ROOTED!!!! The post above is the magic spell that got it done.

I made one change: replaced adb 1.0.31 in the zip with 1.0.32 from the SDK. I tried "adb devices" under 1.0.31 and couldn't find the phone. Under 1.0.32, I found the phone. The install didn't look all that clean. It turns out that neither Busy Box or SuperSU were installed, even though it looks, in the .bat and in the .zip directories, that it should have worked. No problem - I brought them in from Play Store. Easy-peasy. Anyway...

After finishing the script, I installed Root Checker and found the phone is, at last, rooted. With SuperSU and Busy Box installed Life Is Good.

While I don't know that it helped, before running GhettoRoot.bat I got into the recovery page and wiped the cache partition. That may have "blessed" the install or not. Hey - can't hurt, might help.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] TCPDump:
Glad it worked for you! :)
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Believe me, I'm gladder than you're glad. [/LOL]

Seriously, I hope the comments above are of some use. I don't understand why this phone resisted receiving BusyBox and SuperSU, but the GhettoRoot above at least survived the refusal and let Root Checker confirm the phone really is rooted. Since then, of course, I'm doing all the root stuff I want to. Finally, I got really, really brave and rebooted the phone... still rooted. Whew!
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
The one NetworkingPro put out was the one that worked for me multiple times on the note 2. Glad your rooted.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
It certainly made my day.

Two things remain mysteries: 1) why did the phone refuse to let ghettoroot install SuperSU and BusyBox, and 2) what the heck is "[DEBUG] get_root:535: YOU ARE A SCARY DEVICE" all about?

I got around 1) by installing SuperSU and BusyBox from Play Store once the phone rebooted and Root Checker said the phone was rooted.

Item 2) still bothers me.

Now on to the really fun part: updating to Lollipop. If I read things correctly, I'm going to have to get the bootloader to cooperate. I've talked to the TWRP guys and I have the feeling this part of the project have me closer to bricking the phone. Oh my.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
My understanding is that our bootloaders are locked on ND7 and we can use safestrap recovery to flash touchwiz 4.4.2 roms only.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Sigh... Movie over.

Trying to install TWRP, I earned my phone the Yellow Triangle of Death. At this point, all I have is Download mode and Odin. Since the bootloader is locked, any attempt to do a NAND Write fails. Any attempt to get to Recovery brings me to the yellow triangle.

Some days you're dog, some days you're the tree. I'm feeling more than a little over-watered and hate the sight of dogs with raised legs. In my world, the color yellow is no longer a happy color.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I'm happy to say I beat this problem with a stick. The process was brutally ugly but it worked out. It starts with this video from Root Junky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qtbEevn1VA. But things didn't quite work out. At the very end, the process tanked with, on the phone, a message saying "bad magic string". The good news is I didn't get the VZW Yellow Triangle of Death. I got the Kies or some Samsung utilities Yellow Triangle of Death. Out of simple desperation, I tried the same process seen in the video but... I used the ND7 file instead of the MC3 file. I kept the 16G.pit file (maybe I didn't need to repartition, maybe I did). And the whole process passed, front to back. Even more amazing, my data is intact and so are the home screens. I did, however, lose root. I know how to root under ND7, so I'll do that next. And...

Root Checker gave me a scare and said the phone wasn't rooted. I had to install SuperSU first. The only thing this particular rooting process still doesn't do is install SuperSU and BusyBox. I can install them via Play Store, so it's not a real problem.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
Hence the reason I told you our bootloaders are locked and can use safestrap recovery. Glad you got the phone back up and running though.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Aw, jeeze - I must have slept through the SafeStrap comments. Mea culpa. NTL. I thought SafeStrap wasn't an option because of the locked up bootloader.

ADDED: I searched the thread for SafeStrap and got ~50 hits. Looking back to Dec., 14 I see your comments on SS. My general sense is that anything post-4.3 is working under a different set of rules (thanks to VZW) than before 4.4.2. So... SS still can be installed under 4.4.2?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
The safestrap to use for the Note 2 is here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2704992

It states that it is for MJ9 but is tested and working fine on ND7. I have it installed and is working on my note 2 running stock (rooted) 4.4.2 ND7. However, remember that we can only flash TouchWiz 4.4.2 Roms.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] cory733:
just got ghetto root to work. heres what i did. cleared cache and reset my phone to default. downloaded universal adb driver setup, android studio bundle which i dont even think finished installing, java developer (i still dont know what these are for, i guess they contain drivers?). i turned on usb debugging and plugged my phone into my computer (vista) and the phone said connected as installer. if you pick multimedia or camera this option goes away and you have to uncheck/check usb debugging again to get it to come up again. my computer saw my phone as some kind of verizon installation cd. i then ran the ghettoroot from the download provided by networkingpro. the first time it ran it finished and shut off real fast, too fast to read anything except something like thank you for using ghetto boot, enjoy. and my phone restarted. supersu wasnt on there so i downloaded it from the play store. a message in supersu came up saying something about it not working. so i deleted supersu and ran ghettoroot again. this time it stayed on the screen with the message that the phone will restart in 5-10 seconds. it did and when it booted back up supersu was there. i went into supersu and it said everything is good then i downloaded root checker. root checker said congratulations your phone is rooted.

idk what busybox is and its not on my phone. i didnt do any kind of back up. what am i supposed to do now? am i done? do i need a copy of the original rom? i didnt change the rom so idk. im a noob as you can tell. hope this info maybe helped someone a little and any advice is appreciated
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Um, going back a bit, unless there's utterly no hope of doing it. loose Vista and get to Win7. That alone should make your life easier. OK, forward...

You didn't need to install SDK, etc. All you need is the Networking Pro GhettoRoot package and the PDA file. ADB is included in the package. If you've got SuperSU installed and your phone checks out with Root Checker, you're almost done. BusyBox is a collection of tools for the OS. You don't have to use them, but they are used by some other apps. BusyBox can be collected from Play Store, too. Install it. Then you're done.

Ignore the VZW "CD". When the window asking whether to run it or not shows up, do nothing but close the window. The contents are not your friend.

After that, some apps will ask for superuser permission. Titanium Backup, File Explorer, Root Checker, Clean Master all come to mind. If you see a request from an app you don't recognize, don't grant it SU! Please understand that rooting your phone removes a very important layer of protection from your phone. It's very easy to brick your phone directly, and there are people out there who are not your friend and want to ruin your day. If you're not good with that, maybe unrooting is in order?

---------- Post added at 11:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:31 PM ----------

The phone is rooted and running ND7. I'll give SafeStrap a try. What does this do, in the end, for opening the way to move to Lollipop?

ADDED: Why, why, why are these two posts concatenated???

---------- Post added 9th September 2015 at 12:05 AM ---------- Previous post was 8th September 2015 at 11:33 PM ----------

No joy with SafeStrap. It looks as though it installed but... I used TI to do a reboot and didn't see the SafeStrap screen. I used TI to reboot to recovery and got the standard recovery screen, not the SafeStrap recovery screen.

Either this phone is haunted or otherwise in deep digital disaster because things like SafeStrap simply refuse to work. The app is there, of course, and it looks all wonderfully SafeStrap-like. I just won't create a TWRP recovery under SafeStrap. For that matter, TWRP also refuses to install directly.

The phone is definitely an SCH-I605, and it's definitely using ND7.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] cory733:
Thanks RBEmerson. I installed busybox. Do I need TWRP or clockwork? What about software update from samsung do I have to disable it somehow?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
You're welcome. I recommend upgrading to BusyBox Pro, and Root Check Pro, too. Titanium Backup is also very useful for backing up your phone's contents as well allowing you to freeze or delete bloatware and apps that check for OTA's. Again, pay for the full product. In my case, I don't have a need for their Media add-on - I passed on that.

TWRP, AFAIK, will not load up on this phone. I can't make it load and I worked with the developer on trying to sort that out. Instead, use SafeStrap, which includes a somewhat earlier TWRP. Clockwork (CWM) has the same problems as TWRP, or at least that's what happened here.

ADDED: I'll repeat my earlier caution: SafeStrap/TWRP, CWM, BusyBox, etc. all make it very easy to brick your phone. Be sure you know what you're doing before you push the "make it so" button.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
After you install the safestrap app you have to open it and install the recovery. Once you installed recovery you just need to simply reboot the phone and you should see another splash screen now that gives you the option to tap Recovery (bottom left of screen) or tap Continue (bottom right of screen). Tap Recovery to get into safestrap recovery. You won't be able to use any of the reboot to recovery options from the shut down menu or from any other app that could boot into recovery. It just doesn't work that way with safestrap.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I've installed SafeStrap on other phones and it's gone in without a fight. This time around, it just wouldn't go in. Looking back through my notes, I tried SafeStrap earlier, with the same results: the app looked like it was doing the install but rebooting didn't show the splash screen. Rebooting into recovery showed the stock recovery screen. SafeStrap may have thought it installed itself, but the phone disagreed. Until I did the cache wipe and yet another install from the SafeStrap app (not reinstalling from the .apk). SafeStrap is now very much in place and the splash screen shows up at boot-up.

Using TI to just reboot was ...um... doing something easy the hard way. OTOH, using TI to reboot into recovery was a way to avoid trying to get all the right buttons pushed at the right time. I didn't expect TI to make SafeStrap magically appear.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] cory733:
so will safestrap make a copy of the stock rom? so that if i brick the phone i can boot into safe strap and do a recovery? is that the main purpose of it or will it only let me install a custom rom?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
I don't use custom ROM's, or at least not the radically custom ROM's. My goal is to have my phone current and be able to manage its software load (remove bloatware, etc.).

While I'm sure someone will disagree (and be right, into the deal), bricked as in "hard bricked", and not bootlooping or otherwise soft bricked, is bricked. "He's dead, Jim". Game over. You now own a spendy paperweight that doesn't do even that job well.

Um... y'know you're getting into questions that say "if you have to ask, you need to do some more studying". Don't take it personally. This isn't stuff you learn overnight. And some of it can just about only be learned the hard way (see my posts above, filled with grief and rage).

Good luck and keep on studying - this stuff can be fun when it works. [/grin]
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
Yes, you can make a backup with safestrap and install TouchWiz 4.4.2 roms only.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] cory733:
thanks wolf. isnt the stock rom touchwiz? are you saying you can only run the stock rom from the stock rom slot or install other stock roms that are basically the same?

in a boot loop will the phone make it to the safestrap screen? and then be able to run recovery?

if it didnt you would just go into odin mode and flash a copy of the stock rom correct?

now that my phone is rooted can i do a factory reset if i wanted? (found alot of mixed info about this)

besides that im about to download and install safestrap. i have busybox and supersu. i was going to clear cache and run it from the download link in this thread that you recommended in an earlier post

does it look like im ready to go?
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
TouchWiz is the name for Samusung's user interface on top of Android. It's not a ROM name.

Soft boot loops vary in behavior. There's no guarantee that what works in one case will work in another case. It hinges on how the loop was caused, what the phone's state was at the time, etc., etc. Will you see SafeStrap in this case? Maybe. It depends.

Odin may or may not save your day. In trying to get my Note 2 rooted and get SafeStrap in place, Odin didn't get the job done.

You can always do an FDR. Well, if you can get to the recovery screen, or boot up the phone. If not, you can't.

Clearing cache is IMHO always a good idea. It should never break anything, and it may well remove stuff that's not helpful. In short, can't hurt, might help.

The process is to d/l the .apk, make sure the phone will accept foreign, third-party, or unknown apps (be very sure to turn this back off after installing SafeStrap), and then install the app from the apk. From there, follow the instructions in the SafeStrap app.
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] RBEmerson:
Oh, jumpin' jeebus, I've gone back and given myself the VZW Yellow Triangle of Death (YTD) again.

Let's stop here for a sanity check - I'm sure I'm seriously OT so if someone wants to shift this post to a better place, at least tell me where the thread went. Alright... onwards.

For whatever reason, trying to install TWRP (any recent rev.) brings out the YTD. TWRP Manager says TWRP installed but VZW hands out the YTD whether trying reach recovery or simply reboot.

I've gotten too good at restoring ND7: Under Odin, use a sch-i605.pit, included in a distro of MC3, and an md5 of ND7, and ND7 is back. Use the Networking Pro version of GhettoRoot and the phone is rooted. Re-install SuperSU (curiously, it goes away during the GhettoRoot run, but SuperSU Pro remains, although Pro is a dead loss without SuperSU installed), open SuperSU, load the binary, reboot, and open BusyBox Pro, install it, and all is well. Even the home page(s) remain the same. Use TI to re-freeze stuff that was frozen before ("freeze" goes away during re-installing ND7 and being rootless). Anyway...

Going to 4.4.4 means moving to CM11. Will SafeStrap (which uses an earlier TWRP) let me do that? Or, getting stupidly bold, will it let me use the CM12 Lollipop? I assume that of CM11 won't work, CM12 won't either. But ya never know...

ADDED: I mistakenly wrote that frozen items "defrost" during restoring to ND7. That's simply wrong. I had a brain burp after seeing NFL Mobile try to update for some reason. Odd, as I'd deleted, not frozen, the app. The take-away is "don't sweat frozen apps thawing out".
[Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note II] wolfballz:
Nothing other than safestrap is going to work. The bootloader is locked... so therefore won't allow a custom recovery like TWRP or CWM. Trying to flash any form of CM on a ND7 note 2 won't work either as the kernels are different and since the bootloader is locked won't allow other kernels to run.

---------- Post added at 07:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 AM ----------

There's a couple custom ROMS in the forum for the note 2 that will work with safestrap. I don't think you need to do a factory reset. I would go get titanium backup and delete unwanted bloatware. Odin should get you back to good if you do something that bootloops the phone and you can't access safestrap. Clearing cache never hurts.