[Android General] tecknight:
Root your LG Aristo 2/2+/K8+, remove encryption/verity & install TWRP and Magisk

TAT TecKnight's Aristo 2 Tutorials series

Root your LG Aristo 2/2+/K8+, remove encryption/verity & install TWRP and Magisk

Requirements:

An LG Aristo 2 / 2 + / K8 +

A PC running Windows with an internet connection.

A USB cable.

Note: This procedure is deprecated for several reasons, the most important one being that fastboot will not flash a partition on a cv1 device running the latest (Oreo) firmware.

I recommend this procedure instead:

Install a pre-rooted ROM to your LG Aristo 2 / 2 + / Best root method​

However, if your phone is currently running Android 7 (Nougat) based firmware, this procedure will still work.

1. On your phone, go to Settings->General->About Phone->Software Info. Click on Build Number 7 times. You have now enabled Developer Options

2. On your phone, go to Settings->Developer Options and Turn ON both OEM Unlock and USB debugging. Turn OFF Automatic System Updates. Click on Select USB Configuration and select MTP (Media Transfer Protocol)

3. Connect your phone to your PC using the USB cable.

4. On your PC, open a command prompt or power shell session in the folder where your adb and fastboot executables reside.

5. In your command prompt or power shell session, type"

adb devices​

You should see:

List of devices attached

<SerialNumofPhone> device​

6. Now type:

adb reboot bootloader​

7. You should see some text in very small letters on your phone. You are now in bootloader or fastboot mode.

8. Currently, Magisk stable and beta versions are the same (17.1).

If you have a MetroPCS Aristo 2, firmware 10K or earlier, download this file:

10K_M171_EVD.img --> Aristo 2 Magisk 17.1 rooted boot image encrypt/verity/rct disabled​

or if you have a MetroPCS Aristo 2, firmware 10L or later, download this file:

10L_M173_EVD.img --> Aristo 2 Magisk 17.3 rooted boot image encrypt/verity/rct disabled​

Special note for Aristo 2 owners running 10L or later: I have personally and I have had reports from others who have experienced boot loops after flashing the 10L or later patched boot image. Others have reported success using this image. If you do experience boot loops after flashing the 10L or later boot image, I recommend the following:

Install a custom pre-rooted ROM to your LG Aristo 2 or Aristo 2 plus using TWRP​

or if you have a T-Mobile Aristo 2 plus, download this:

RB_M171_EVD_A2P.img --> Aristo 2 + Magisk 17.1 rooted boot image encrypt/verity/rct disabled​

or if you have a US Cellular K8 plus, download this:

RB_M171_EVD_K8P.img --> K8 + Magisk 17.1 rooted boot image encrypt/verity/rct disabled​

Download this file as well:

recovery.img --> Latest TWRP 3.2.1.0 for Aristo 2 by armandop_ (works on 2+ and K8+ as well)​

9. Place both files into the folder where your adb and fastboot executables reside. Make sure they are named exactly as listed above.

10. Type the following in the command prompt or power shell session:

fastboot devices​

You should see:

<SerialNumofPhone> fastboot​

11. Type this:

fastboot flashing unlock​

fastboot will say this will wipe your data. Tell it to continue.

Now we need to erase the userdata and cache partitions to prevent fastboot from encrypting them. Type:

fastboot erase userdata​

You should see:

******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition?

erasing 'userdata'...

OKAY [ 0.031s]

finished. total time: 0.031s​

Now type:

fastboot erase cache​

You should see:

******** Did you mean to fastboot format this ext4 partition?

erasing 'cache'...

OKAY [ 0.031s]

finished. total time: 0.031s​

12. Now that you are unlocked, flash the rooted boot image. Depending on the file you downloaded above, type:

fastboot flash boot 10K_M171_EVD.img

or

fastboot flash boot 10L_M173_EVD.img

or

fastboot flash boot RB_M171_EVD_A2P.img

or

fastboot flash boot RB_M171_EVD_K8P.img

​

You should see:

target reported max download size of 262144000 bytes

sending 'boot' (15210 KB)...

OKAY [ 0.585s]

writing 'boot'...

OKAY [ 0.200s]

finished. total time: 0.790s​

13. Now flash TWRP. Type:

fastboot flash recovery recovery.img​

You should see:

target reported max download size of 262144000 bytes

sending 'recovery' (17010 KB)...

OKAY [ 0.585s]

writing 'recovery'...

OKAY [ 0.200s]

finished. total time: 0.790s​

14. Now reboot back to Android. Type:

fastboot reboot​

Note: Your bootup screen will now look like this:

​

This message does not indicate a problem. This is the normal bootup screen of the Aristo 2, once the bootloader is unlocked. DO NOT lock the bootloader or your phone will then refuse to boot.

Note: Since we had to wipe userdata, Android will boot up with the setup wizard, just like the first time the phone was booted.

15. Once you get past the setup wizard, repeat steps 1 and 2, as most of our settings have been reset back to defaults. After completing steps 1 and 2, return to step 16.

16. Download the following file and copy it to your phone's Download folder:

Magisk-v17.1.zip --> Magisk 17.1 installation .zip​

17. On your PC, go to your command prompt or power shell and type:

adb reboot recovery​

Your phone will now boot into TWRP for the first time.

18. On your phone, Swipe to allow modifications.

19. Now select INSTALL, then browse into the Download folder and select your Magisk install .zip.

Swipe to confirm flash. TWRP will install Magisk on your system.

20. Now, select Reboot System.

Your phone will boot back into Android. Your phone should now be rooted, unencrypted and have Magisk and TWRP installed.

21. Confirm that Magisk is installed and working. Look for the Magisk Manager icon on your android desktop. The icon looks like this:

[IMG="Magisk Mgr icon"]https://apprecs.org/gp/images/app-icons/300/05/com.topjohnwu.magisk.jpg[/IMG]

If you can't find the icon, download and install the app from here:

Magisk Manager 5.9.1 download​

22. Click on the Magisk Manager icon to launch it. You should see a screen resembling the following:

You should have the 2 green check marks at the top, with the version showing as 17.1.

Under Advanced Settings, both Preserve options should be unchecked.

If you don't have the green check marks, click Install, then install again, then Direct Install (Recommended).

If you want to keep the latest Magisk beta on your phone, click on the 3 horizontal lines and select Settings, click on Update Channel and select Beta.

23. Once Magisk is installed, I recommend you check out the multitude of cool, mostly rooted apps available from the Magisk repo. Click on the 3 horizontal lines and select Downloads, then browse thru the large list of apps that are available.

Please hit the Thanks button at the bottom of this post if you appreciate my work.

_________

Change Log:

02/03/2019 Added note that this procedure is deprecated.

11/22/2018 Added link to flashing rooted image with TWRP as alternative.

11/19/2018 Added specific note and instructions when running Aristo 2 version 10L or later. Thanks to @Dillmiester for showing me that I was not the only one having issues with 10L.

10/20/2018 Changed all of the custom file downloads from Google Drive to androidfilehost.com.

9/18/2018 Added K8 plus patched boot image. Thanks to @RandoSwift for providing the stock K8 plus boot image.

9/3/2018 Updated Magisk installer and Magisk manager links to reflect current versions (17.1 and 5.9.1). I also updated the patched boot images to 17.1 and linked to those images.

8/4/2018 Added a picture of the bootloader unlocked warning that displays when the phone is booted.

8/2/2018 Added newest version of TWRP for Aristo 2 by @Armandop_. It now pulls the correct date/time.

8/2/2018 Added Aristo 2 plus patched boot image. Thanks to @SteelH for providing the stock Aristo 2 plus boot image.

7/23/2018 Changed Magisk beta boot image and installation .zip to ver 16.7.

7/15/2018 Removed LG root checking tool from both boot images and changed Magisk beta boot image to ver 16.6.

7/3/2018 Made changes to allow user to choose to install either Magisk 16 released or Magisk 16.4 beta. Thanks to @GotHeart for information regarding Magisk 16.4 beta.

6/27/2018 Made several changes when I determined that fastboot was creating encrypted userdata and cache partitions whenever flashing lock state was changed. Ultimately, I was able to simplify this procedure, as I can now guarantee that step 14 will create a non-encrypted userdata and cache filesystem. This allowed me to eliminate several subsequent steps. Thanks to @tge101 for identifying this issue.

5/21/2018 Created initial procedure.​