[EVO 4G Android Development] TheBiles:
This guide is ancient, guys. The only purpose it should serve now is showing you how to set up ADB or flash something through recovery. You can use unrEVOked Forever to root now, which is much faster and easier. Quit sending me PMs with questions about this.

After the positive response I got from my Swype guide, I decided to do one for root too. I have found that Toast's guide goes way over the head of a lot of new users (Using adb to copy and rename files? C'm on, Toast!), and I want to simplify things down for them.

In this guide, I will provide a way for you to backup your phone in case you have any vital programs, and I will take you all the way through getting back to the rooted stock image and restoring your apps (from there, you will be on your own!). This DOES work with Sprint's latest OTA (ends in .6).

Please let me know if there are any errors or any omissions (something like Titanium Backup not working with unrEVOked; I haven't tested this). Also, if someone wants to take some screenshots of the recovery stuff or just has images of the steps, just let me know, and I can add them.

If you get stuck on a step, please post it in the topic first instead of directly PMing me. It's not that I don't want to personally help you (you can ask all the people I've helped), but I'm not always directly available, and other users can freely help you out if you post in the thread! It also provides a little "mini-troubleshooting" scenario for anyone else with the same issue as you. I also recommend reading the entire guide before doing it so you will have some idea of what steps you will be taking! Thanks!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

SECTION I: BACKING UP YOUR APPS

SECTION II: ROOTING FOR THE FIRST TIME

SECTION III: INSTALLING A CUSTOM RECOVERY

SECTION IV: INSTALLING A CUSTOM ROM

SECTION V: NESSECARY SOFTWARE INSTALLATION

SECTION VI: INTRODUCTION TO ADB

SECTION VII: UNLOCKING NAND

1. First things first, if you don't want to backup your apps, skip to step #14.

SECTION I: BACKING UP YOUR APPS

2. Go to the settings menu, and select Applications.

3. Check the box next to "Unknown Applications" and accept the warning.

4. Go to your web browser and navigate to http://unrevoked.com/m/ .

5. Click the logo to download the file, as it says.

6. Once the file is done downloading, click it.

7. Click the install button, and hit "open" when it is done installing.

8. Click Start!

9. When you get the "Done." message, navigate to the Market and find Titanium Backup. I HIGHLY recommend the donate version, but you need to donate to the dev via PayPal to get a license file, and it could take him up to a day to email it to you.

10. Click "open" after it is done installing and click the "Problems?" tab at the bottom.

11. Click "yes" to install BusyBox.

12. When Titanium Backup restarts, press Menu and select "Batch."

13. Backup all of your apps here.

SECTION II: ROOTING FOR THE FIRST TIME

14. Plug in your phone's USB cable and connect it to your computer. You should get a prompt in the notification bar that the phone is connected. Open the notification bar and select where it says "charge only."

15. Change the type to "disk drive" and select "Done."

16. Download this file, and save it to your desktop.

17. Since your phone is connected as a disk drive, navigate to My Computer and you will see it as "Removable Disk." Drag and drop the file you just downloaded to the icon.

18. At this point, we are about to flash the debug image. YOUR DATA WILL ALL BE WIPED AFTER THIS POINT!

19. Hold down "power" to bring up the following menu. Select "Power off."

20. Select "Ok."

21. Thanks to mrono, we now have some images of the recovery image for your ease of use, but I will post toast's exact words that you should follow to the letter. If you want step-by-step versions of this, skip to step 21a.

Essentially, you just have to hold the volume down button as you press the power button, and the phone will do the rest. Just accept any prompts you get.

21a. When powering on, hold down the volume down key, and keep holding it down until this screen appears.

21b. It will search for a second then prompt you to install the PC36IMG.zip. Select yes.

21c. After the installation is complete, select yes to reboot your device.

22. You are now rooted! Congratulations! However, this debug ROM will not show protected apps in the Market, so we're going to install a rooted version of the stock ROM now.

23. After everything is booted, reconnect your USB cable and enter disk drive mode as described before.

24. Navigate to the PC36IMG.zip file and rename it however you want. This prevents it from running when ever you reboot. After this file is renamed, disable "disk mode" the same way you enabled it.

SECTION III: INSTALLING A CUSTOM RECOVERY

NOTE: Steps 25 - 28 were removed due to ROM Manager being updated. Follow the steps in step 29 below.

29. If ROM Manager just won't work for you, download this file, rename it to "update.zip," and copy it to the root of your SD card just like we did with the PC36IMG zip before. A common problem that people have here is actually typing the last ".zip" in when naming the file. ONLY type "update" as the file name because the file you are downloading is already in .zip format, and Windows hides known file extensions. If you get any kind of "file cannot be found" or "verification error" on this step, then you probably made this mistake, and you just need to rename the file.

Please note: This is the ONLY file on your SD card to be named "update.zip." Do NOT rename any other files to "update.zip" or remove this file.

SECTION IV: INSTALLING A CUSTOM ROM

30. At this time, we will download the rooted stock ROM. Get it here and save it to your desktop. Do NOT rename this downloaded ROM to "update.zip!"

31. Copy it to your SD card exactly like we did before with the first ROM. Make sure you re-enable disk mode so you can copy files again.

32. Once again, thanks to mrono we have photos of this step, but I will give you the exact words from Koush on how to boot into recovery. Skip to step 32a for exact step-by-step instructions in this step.

Just like before, we turn off the phone and hold the volume down key as we power on the device. However, this time we will select "Recovery" from the menu (move down with the volume button and select it with the power button). Now you will see a screen with an exclamation mark. Press and hold the volume up button and press the power button. Select the "apply update.zip" option, and you will be in recovery mode.

32a. Just as before, hold down the volume down key as you power on the phone until this screen appears. Select "Recovery" from the menu.

32b. When you enter recovery, you will see the following screen. Don't panic.

32c. Hold the volume up button and press the power button. You will now be presented with the following screen.

32d. From here, select "apply sdcard:update.zip." Remember, this is the recovery image from before. Your phone will boot into the ClockworkMod custom recovery.

33. First, wipe the cache partition and the user data by selecting their respective menu options. From here, select "install zip from sdcard." Now select "choose zip from sdcard" and navigate to the stock ROM .zip file that we downloaded. Skip to step 33a for step-by-step images, but the text below may help you navigate the recovery menu:

The full recovery menu will read as follows:

Select the bolded in the items in the order in which they appear. After all is wiped, select -install zip from sdcard then pick -choose zip from sdcard and finally navigate to the zipped ROM that you want to install.

33a. From the recovery menu, select the following options and confirm them: "wipe data/factory reset" followed by "wipe cache partition."

33b. After everything is wiped, navigate to "install zip from sdcard," then select "choose zip from sdcard."

33c. Now, navigate to the custom ROM that you downloaded and select it. You will get a progress bar.

34. After the ROM is done installing, press "**Go Back**" and then pick "reboot system now" from the menu.

35. Congratulations again! You are now running a rooted version of the stock ROM (or the custom ROM of your choice). You can restore your apps with Titanium Backup or you can get another custom ROM and flash it exactly the same way that you flashed the stock ROM. I highly recommend Fresh ROM, which can be found in this topic. In fact, ANY custom ROM can be flashed in the same manner that is described in steps 30-34.

35a. Make sure you flash the latest radio update before installing any custom ROMs! It flashes just like a ROM, and you can download it and find any warning information here. Don't dp this yet if you plan on continuing the guide and unlocking NAND because you will have to do it again at the end of the guide.

SECTION V: NESSECARY SOFTWARE INSTALLATION

36. We are going to download and install three pieces of software here: 7-Zip, HTC Sync, and the Android SDK. First, we will install 7-Zip. Navigate to the 7-Zip website (http://www.7-zip.org/download.html) and download the appropriate version for your copy of Windows (either 32 or 64 bit). Install it. In my opinion, this is the best archive utility, and it just makes life easier if we're on the same page.

37. Next, head to the HTC website (http://www.htc.com/us/support/evo-sprint/downloads/) and download the HTC Sync update for Windows. Install it. This should take care of your drivers for 32 or 64 bit.

38. Finally, head to the Android Developers (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html) website and select the Windows version of the Android SDK. Agree to the software agreement and save the file.

39. Take the zip file that you just downloaded and copy it to your C: drive as shown.

40. Once the file is copied, right click on it and select 7-Zip then "Extract Files Here." You should now see a folder called "android-sdk-windows" in the root of your C: drive. You've installed the Android SDK successfully.

SECTION VI: INTRODUCTION TO ADB

41. Accessing ADB is very easy. Click on the new android-sdk-windows folder, and you will see a bunch of different folders inside. We're going to be concerned with the "tools" folder, but don't open it!

42. Hold down the shift key and right click the tools folder. Select "Open Command Window Here" from the pop-up list. You have now opened an adb window, and any interaction with your phone will be done through this simple command line. You can copy lines directly from this tutorial and paste them into the command window by right clicking and selecting "Paste" (CTRL+V will not work in the command line).

43. If you want to manually navigate to the adb line (you don't need to do this unless you couldn't get step 42 to work), open a Command Prompt window (Run -> "cmd.exe" on XP/Vista, or just search "Command Prompt" in Windows 7). Now enter the following line of code: cd C:\android-sdk-windows\tools\ . This will take you to the tools folder where you must execute all adb commands.

44. Remember how to get to the adb command prompt. Any time I tell you to enter something via adb take the following steps: Connect your phone via USB, ensure USB Debugging is enabled (Menu -> Settings -> Applications -> Development, but this should be already enabled from the previous steps), and open the command window via either method described in steps 42 or 43. You can find a list of basic adb commands here or by typing "adb help" from the adb command line. You should always be able to directly copy and paste any code that I give you, however.

SECTION VII: UNLOCKING NAND

45. Download Toast's EVO Recovery files here. Save the .zip file anywhere you please. When it is done downloadi ng, right click it, and "Extract Files Here" using 7-Zip again. We are going to use a batch file in this folder to enter a custom recovery mode in a minute.

46. Download the new PC36IMG.zip debug ROM located here. When the menu pops up asking you to save the file, remove the "eng-" off the name so it only reads "PC36IMG". It is very important that you do this before you copy the file to your phone, either now or manually after you save it. NOTE: This is NOT the same image that we used in the first portion of the guide. You MUST download this version.

47. Next, download Toast's custom recovery image located here. Again, right click it and select "save target as." This time delete everything else off the front of the file name so it only reads "recovery".

48. The last two files that you will be downloading are mtd-eng.zip (located here) and flash_image.zip (located here). Once both of these files are downloaded them, right click and "Extract files here" with 7-Zip. You will now have the following files downloaded and extracted:

49. Copy the flash_image, mtd-eng.img, recovery.img, and PC36IMG.zip files to the root of your SD card just as shown below.

50. Now the fun part!! Open an adb window and enter the following code:

adb reboot recovery

Your phone will now reboot and show the yield sign with the red exclamation point. Don't touch it!

51. Navigate to that "evo-recovery" folder that you extracted earlier and right click on the "recovery-windows" batch file. Select "Run as Administrator" from the menu to execute the file. Another command window will pop up and spew out a bunch of lines. Don't touch it! Just look at your phone which is now in the Amon RA recovery image! If right-clicking doesn't work, try double-clicking to run it normally.

52. Special thanks to Riztnack for the wonderful screens in the follownig sections! Select "Backup and Restore" from the recovery menu. After that select the option to backup your current ROM. You have just performed a nandroid backup. Keep this in mind, becase we are going to restore this after the whole process is over.

53. Select "reboot" from the recovery menu and let your phone boot back up. Make sure you are connected to your computer via USB (you should not be in disk drive mode here or you will get an error), and go back to that same adb window we had open before and used to reboot our device (you can close the window that opened when you ran the batch file). Enter the following lines exactly as they are written, ONE LINE AT A TIME (I recommend copy and pasting):

adb shell
cat /sdcard/flash_image > /data/flash_image
chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image misc /sdcard/mtd-eng.img

You will get an error message if anything goes wrong in the shell. When you enter the last three commands the window will just repeat them again to confirm that they were executed properly.

54. Now power off your phone just as before. Hold the volume down button as you press power to turn the device on. It will enter the bootloader just as before.

55. Select YES to flash the image, and after it is done flashing select YES to reboot. Don't worry if one of the "TP" options is bypassed. This is normal.

56. Once rebooted, go back to your adb command window and enter the following commands:

adb shell
cat /sdcard/flash_image > /data/flash_image
chmod 755 /data/flash_image
/data/flash_image recovery /sdcard/recovery.img
reboot recovery

You will get the same confirmations when you enter the 2nd through 4th commands. After you enter the last one the phone SHOULD boot into the same recovery that we were in before. If your phone does NOT boot into recovery, take the following steps: Disconnect from USB, pull the battery, reboot the device, and enter the same adb commands as in step 53. After that, enter lines 2 throuh 5 from step 56. You should now be in recovery. Disclaimer: These were just the steps that I took after my phone did not boot into recovery the first time. They worked for me, so let me know if they work for you or not.

57. Your NAND is now unlocked!! Once your phone boots directly into recovery in step #56, take that as confirmation of success! While in recovery, wipe your user data (factory reset) and wipe the Dalvic cache.

58. Head to the Backup/Restore menu and restore that last nandroid backup that you just did. You can now reboot your phone, and it will be exactly the same as before.

58a. Make sure you flash the latest radio update before installing any custom ROMs! It flashes just like a ROM, and you can download it and find any warning information here. Even if you installed it before, you will have to flash it again because the debug ROM writes an older version.

59. Be sure to rename that PC36IMG.zip to something else like "NAND-PC36IMG.zip" just like you did before so that it doesn't try to boot it every time you enter the bootloader.

60. You can now enter recovery mode by entering the bootloader (holding volume down while powering on the device) and selecting recovery or by using the QuickBoot app (I highly recommend it). You can also use apps like AdFree or Root Explorer to freely edit your /system partition.

I really hoped this guide helped you guys, and I look forward to your feedback.

I'm not going to be asking for any donations because I'm not the one doing all of the work--the devs are the real contributers. I've just taken thier methods and spelled them out in an easy-to-follow way. Those guys work long hours contributing to the community so you should be donating to them.

That's all, folks! I hope you enjoy your root! Big thanks to all of the devs who have made this possible!

Here are some important links with relevant discussions:

Original root guide.

Fake-flash recovery guide.

Stock RUU topic with discussion.

Stock OTA topic with discussion.

How to fix QuickBoot and ROM Manager's rebooting functions on some ROMs.

ADB guide for when you're ready to take the next step.

Making ClockworkMod your permanent recovery.

Original NAND unlock guide.