[Honor 5X Guides, News, & Discussion] paulobrien:
All Honor devices currently shipped with a locked bootloader. As long as manufacturers provide a way to unlock, then we're down with that - it helps keep your device secure and means that if you lose it, it's harder for people to steal your data (the process of unlocking the bootloader wipes the phone).

There are two ways to unlock your Honor phones bootloader, which will then allow you to install things like custom recoveries, custom kernels / ROMs etc. The first is using the official Honor method, which is free, and the second is using a third party, which costs €4 Euros, but may be the quickest option if the official method isn't working for you.

The official method

In order to unlock your Honor device using the official method, complete the following steps:

Visit https://www.emui.com/en/plugin.php?id=unlock&mod=detail and either create a new account or login with an existing Huawei account.

In the form displayed after logging in, enter:

Your phone model (KIW-L21 for the Honor 5X)

Your phone serial number (this can be found in Settings -> About -> Status)

Your phone IMEI1 (this can be found in Settings -> About -> Status)

Your phone product ID (to find this, open the dialler and enter *#*#1357946#*#*)

The captcha code

Press the 'Submit' button.

At this point you will either be provided with a code, or you will receive an error such as 'The Huawei ID used to apply for the unlock code has not been used on the device for more than 14 days.' If you get the error, you will need to use the unofficial method below.

Open a command window on your PC / Mac, which needs to have 'adb' and 'fastboot' installed from the Android SDK.

Enable USB debugging by tapping the build number in Settings -> About 5 times, then going back and selecting the option from the Development menu.

Enable OEM unlock in the Development menu.

Connect your phone to the PC and approve the security prompt on the device screen.

In the command window on your PC / Mac, enter 'adb reboot bootloader' to enter fastboot mode'.

In the command window on your PC / Mac, enter 'fastboot oem unlock [insertnumberhere]', of course using the number provided by the Huawei site.

YOUR PHONE WILL WIPE ITSELF AT THIS POINT!

That's it! You're done!

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The unofficial method

In order to unlock your Honor device using the unofficial method, if for example you receive the '14 day' error from the Huwei site, complete the following steps:

On a Windows PC, download and install DC-unlocker from https://www.dc-unlocker.com/.

On your phone, enter Manufacturer Mode - open the dialler and enter *#*#2846579#*#*. In the app that then opens, select Project Menu -> Background settings -> USB ports settings -> Manufacturer Mode.

Download the Huawei driver pack from https://files.dc-unlocker.com/share.html?v=share/88D4A98C154D4E19AF9D4A1EF09BA620.

Install the Huawei driver pack by extracting the file you just downloaded (using WinRAR or similar) and running 'DriverSetup'

After installing the driver pack, connect your phone to the PC. In Device Manager, after the automated driver install, you should have no 'Unknown Devices'.

Launch the previously downloaded DC-unlocker application.

From the drop down lists, select 'Huawei Phones' and 'Auto Detect Model'.

Press the magnifying glass icon - the app will then search for your phone.

You should see an image like the one below showing your phone is found. At this point, press the 'Buy Credits' option to set up your DC-Unlocker account and purchase the 4 credits required for code retrieval (this will cost €4). You can also do this directly from the DC-Unlocker website.

After your credit purchase is complete, click the 'Server' section and enter your new DC-unlocker login details. Press 'Check Login' to validate the details (if the server is busy, this may take multiple attempts).

Click the 'Unlocking' section, and click 'Read Bootloader Code'. Do NOT click 'Unlock'. Again, if the server is busy, this may take multiple attempts. The white area of the app will now display the bootloader code. Screen grab this just in case!

Open a command window on your PC, which needs to have 'adb' and 'fastboot' installed from the Android SDK.

Enable USB debugging by tapping the build number in Settings -> About 5 times, then going back and selecting the option from the Development menu.

Enable OEM unlock in the Development menu.

Connect your phone to the PC and approve the security prompt on the device screen.

In the command window on your PC / Mac, enter 'adb reboot bootloader' to enter fastboot mode'.

In the command window on your PC / Mac, enter 'fastboot oem unlock [insertnumberhere]', of course using the number provided by the DC-Unlocker process.

YOUR PHONE WILL WIPE ITSELF AT THIS POINT!

That's it! You're done!

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