[EVO 4G Android Development] Neotelos_com:
I owe much credit to toastcfh, none of this would be possibly without his work on originally rooting the EVO.

Getting Root & Recovery Mode

(My version, dumbed down even more)

You have three options with rooting:

1) Toasts Rooted ROM - Missing Apps in Market

2) Rooted Stock ROM - No 4G Support

3) Unrevoked Root Patch - No system access in recovery (can't remove sprint apps, etc)

To get a rooted stock ROM, you have to start with Toasts, instructions below; you can find details after.

If you want the Unrevoked Root patch, install a file browser on your EVO and install this.

1. Copy this to the root folder of the SD card, you can do this by syncing the Evo as a disc and just copying in windows.

2. Shut off the Evo, and hold the "volume down" button while powering it on until you see a white screen. Every question it asks, just answer yes. DO NOT UNPLUG, let it finish at all costs, no matter how long it takes.

3. Rename the file you copied to the SD card. (to avoid accidental re-flash and save it for later)

4. Download this and unzip to anywhere of you liking on your desktop. Run the setup, if it asks to accept and install a bunch of stuff, hit cancel, you wont be needing most of it. Select available packages and it will show a repository url, the actual url is irrelevant and will be google's be default...we want to expand the list and select SDK Platform 2.1. Accept an install the selection.

What you just did is installed the Android SDK which includes adb, a shell connector for your phone that we need to operate in recovery mode.

5. Hold the Windows key and press "R", type CMD in the run box. (Run the task with Administrative privileges if there is an option)

Type "cd " in the CMD window, do not forget the trailing space, it is important and DO NOT HIT ENTER yet.

Now, with that CMD windows open, go to the folder you installed the android sdk. There will be a "tools" folder, drag the tools folder into the cmd window.

Press enter, this will set your working directory to the tools folder.

6. If you have not installed drivers for your Evo, there is a folder that comes of the sd card called "HTC-Sync", run the setup in there and it will install sufficient drivers automatically.

After drivers are setup sync the phone using the HTC Sync mode, this will ensure we can control the phone using adb.

Go to your CMD window and type "adb reboot recovery", you will see your phone reboot...it will show a red warning icon on the screen afterwards, this is perfectly normal and good to see such.

7. Your phone should not be in recovery mode, but the filesystem will be offline. Download this to setup the shell for us before we can mount the filesystem. Run "recovery-windows.bat", if you are using Vista or Win7, make to sure right click the file and "Run as Administrator"...you will see another CMD window popup and do some work, just leave it open. You should now have the shell setup in Recovery Mode on your Evo.

8. Go back to your original CMD window we setup, type "adb shell" and hit enter, this will set all commands to work right on the phone. You should see a line with just "#", that is what we want.

Now type "mount /dev/block/mtdblock4 /system" and hit enter.

You should now have your Evo in recovery mode with a shell setup and filesystem mounted. This is where we can begin making changes.

Now that this has all been setup, you may want to go back after making some changes.

Repeat steps 5-8 to re-enter recovery mode with the filesystem mounted.

If you want to continue and do the stock update, check here.

Basically, copy that file to the SD and do steps 5-7.

Then use the onscreen (on the EVO Recovery Mode) to "Flash from ZIP" and select the rooted stock rom update.

WARNING: You must clear user data if the update creates issue, you will know right away.