[Huawei MediaPad M5  Guides, News, & Discussion] Apo11on:
DISCLAIMER: I'm not responsible for anything that happens to your device. Use the steps below at your own risk . Be mindful of the facts unlocking bootloader voids your warranty and also hard resets your device - ALL YOUR DATA, SETTINGS, FILES AND APPS WILL BE DELETED. Rooting your device voids warranty as well. I own the Chinese SHT-AL09 8.4" LTE device and tested this root procedure ONLY WITH THIS MODEL. However, I believe there is a good chance the steps below will work for all other models of MediaPad M5, including WiFi only variants and 10" models. You MUST unlock your bootloader first. Do NOT use ramdisk image I provide in the steps below for any other model besides SHT-AL09 - doing so is guaranteed to render your device unusable. Ramdisk I provided is ONLY for SHT-AL09. You will need to extract your own ramdisk from stock firmware, specific to your device model

Credits:

[MENTION=937333]Wirmpolter[/MENTION] - this root method largely based on his Magisk guide for Mate 9

[MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION] for creating the awesome Magisk Manager, which was used to patch ramdisk image with superuser binary

People, who created HuaweiUpdateExtractor

[MENTION=692966]magnumlove[/MENTION] who pointed me in the right for developing root method in this post

This site, for hosting stock firmware for Huawei MediaPad M5

1. First, you will need to unlock the bootloader of your M5. Follow this guide

2. Transfer this patched ramdisk image to your device

Note for users with version of M5 other than SHT-AL09: Do NOT use the above ramdisk image. Download the full stock rom (update.zip) from the site I linked in the credits. Extract UPDATE.APP file from the zip. Then use HuaweiUpdateExtractor to extract ramdisk.img specific to your device. If you get errors in HuaweiUpdateExtractor - uncheck first 2 checkboxes for checksum verification on Settings tab and try again

3. Once bootloader is unlocked, install latest Magisk Manager from the official Magisk thread

4. Once Magisk Manager gives you a pop-up prompt to either download Magisk zip or patch the boot image file - chose to patch the boot image, but instead of boot.img select ramdisk.img from step 2. Magisk Manager should give you a message the image was successfully patched. It will be saved as patched_boot.img in MagiskManager folder on your sdcard. If it does not say success - do NOT proceed

5. Transfer the newly created patched_boot.img back to your PC

6. If you already have ADB and Fastboot tools installed on your PC you can just use what you've got. If not - get them from here

7. Connect your M5 to PC via USB cable

8. Run command prompt. If your ADB and Fastboot are installed as system app - you can do this from any path in CMD. If not - you need to switch in CMD to your ADB and Fastboot folder. Either way, the patched ramdisk patched_boot.img file must be in the same path, from which you will be running commands below in CMD window

9. Type "adb " in CMD window to start android debug bridge

10. Type "adb reboot-bootloader" and wait until your device restarts in Download mode

11. Once in Download mode, type "fastboot flash ramdisk patched_boot.img" - you should see some output from flash procedure, indicating successful flash

12. Once patched ramdisk is flashed, type "fastboot reboot"

That is it - you're done. Once your device reboots it will be rooted.

Note 1: Magisk Manager has it's own built-in superuser app and uses Systemless root, which works completely differently - you will not see external, standalone app like SuperSU or SU you might be familiar with in your App Drawer. The way to control the superuser app is from Magisk Manager itself: Settings->Superuser section

Note 2: I don't do tech support via PM, so don't PM me for help or with questions. Use the thread instead, and some other XDA members or myself will probably help you. Good luck!

Note 3: You may find some links to Huawei stock firmware in the 2nd post

UPDATE - August 6, 2018

Huawei officially approved 8.0.0.171 firmware with GPU Turbo for installation on SHT-AL09 devices. If you're doing first time root - just follow the original steps above. If you are already rooted and want to upgrade to 8.0.0.171 - follow the steps below:

1. Boot into download mode:

adb reboot-bootloader

from CMD window

2. Flash stock recovery from 8.0.0.171 to your device in fastboot:

fastboot flash recovery_ramdisk recovery_ramdis.img

3. Download and install the official OTA through Settings (full or just the update)

4. Boot into download mode again and flash patched ramdisk from 8.0.0.171

fastboot flash ramdisk patched_boot.img

5. OPTIONAL: If you were using TWRP or any custom recovery - you will need to reflash it back

fastboot flash recovery_ramdisk twrp.img

or whatever you named your custom recovery image

REMINDER: Do NOT use ramdisk image I provided for any other model besides SHT-AL09 - doing so is guaranteed to render your device unusable. This patched ramdisk is ONLY for SHT-AL09. You will need to extract your own ramdisk from stock firmware, specific to your device model

Needless to say, all the images you are going to flash must reside in the same directory, from which you are going to be running the CMD commands. If your ADB/Fastboot folder is not in your WIndows' PATH environmental variable - the images must be placed in the same folder where ADB/Fastboot binaries are, and CMD commands must be run from that folder.