[myTouch 3G, Magic General] boyband6666:
Hi all,

Firstly apologies for the long post, and thanks for all the info that is up here... however I have managed to get quite lost. I'll try to take you though the whole story as much as I understand it, but I woke up this morning and decided (after 8 months) to finally root my android.

That was 8am, it is now midnight, and I've had sandwiches while working at it, all day. It has been in various stages of bricked, and I think I might have just sent it back that way - should not be playing with it when tired.

Things I have

1 x UK Vodafone HTC Magic, doing return plus power = 32B, HBOOT-1.33.0009 (another story here).

1x 16GB SD-HC card

1x 1gb Card

1x cheap nokia I can use as a reader for the 1gig card, but it can't handle SD-HC

Anyway I started off with the 1 click root idea, which obviously doesn't work these days, so followed the next link, then the next, finding I need to do the 'goldcard' method.

theunlockr.com/2009/08/14/how-to-root-your-mytouch-3g/comment-page-3/

Anyway I'm not sure where all the time has gone (16 hours now), but I have learnt what an SPL was, flashed mine to an ‘imperfect’ one, managed to flash it to deteethed google, then cyanogen on top, but it would never boot, and just hangs saying HTC Magic, then managed to flash it using 'myhero' which gave me a Hero like phone.

However I now seem to have messed it up again as I'm determined to do the cyanogen mod - I really want to be able to tether, and lots of other bits and pieces.

The state at the moment therefore is I have it all working with fastboot, and can easily get the Amon_RA recovery image going, but the cm_recovery one makes it hang and do nothing. If I try and replace the recovery section using fastboot it tells me it has failed (I forget the exact message).

I can therefore upgrade things using the Amon_RA backup, but as I said things don't seem to entirely work, and at the moment my phone is hanging (I think as I'm tired I've overwritten my backup). I'm also not sure if this goldcard method is working – I asked a question in the thread and it seems that it might not be.

I guess I'm just looking for a few pointers, after 16 hours sat here I'm generally pretty frustrated and totally lost - there is a lot of information, but there are so many permutations of hardware, and a lot of the information is now out of date. Trying to take everything in as well as deal with a specific problem may actually be beyond me  Which is something I hate- being the newbie needing help with a potentially simple problem (though I have had a good go at it).

I'm really not sure what stage the phone is at, have I rooted it? After all I can use the myhero rom, but on the other hand I can't do what I want to do, so therefore is there a problem? Exactly which step makes it ‘rooted?’ as every guide is obviously a chain of events to make it in to something else. I'm honestly not sure, but it isn't a fun feeling – I’m stressed and at the momentI have no phone just a brick that I can fastboot to recovery, and a bunch of backups as soon as I get it working again.

I really had no idea it would be this difficult, and am a big angry at Google/HTC for making it so - it is easier to get Hackintosh working than this! I’ve also managed to do hundreds of other similar things without any problem – Xbox Media Center (including soldering), and a few more spring to mind, all to use the hardware I already own! My hardware!

Anyway advice and pointers are appreciated, as although I've learnt a lot today, I'm still blundering about, and it is a matter of time until I cause serious damage in my attempts to make it better, al alternatively just throw in the towel, but then I don’t think I can go back as I have a horrible feeling that the restore I did didn’t work.

Again anything you can offer is appreciated, and if you need more detail, I’ll do what I can!

Anthony