[Droid Eris Android Development] wildfirewolf:
Trying Different OSes

Hey guys. I have not achieved root either, but I just wanted to post my various attempts in case it may help the cause. I installed android-sdk on Windows 7, Ubuntu 10.04, and Snow Leopard. When I do "adb devices", all recognize the phone if I have it turned on normally.

So I turn it off, pop out the SD card, hold Send+Power to go into Fastboot, press VolDown for HBOOT, then press VolUp to attempt to enter recovery, follow the cadence (and have tried faster and slower), and insert the card. After a few seconds, I get the /!\ with no devices being listed, whether I loop or not. In the first post, it mentions that when you get the /!\, to try removing the card and inserting it again quickly. I tried that a few times, but it didn't work for me.

I purchased my phone on eBay a few months ago. It had Leak v3 on it when I started this root process. I had only tried Windows 7 to start with. Since I didn't have any luck, I put RUU on it. Yeah I know it's the same, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to follow the instructions to the letter. I haven't had any luck with any of the other operating systems after installing RUU (all through USB 2.0 ports btw).

I live an hour from civilization, and I'm cheap, so I've been avoiding buying another SD card. But tomorrow I'm taking my mom and grandma to Target, so while I'm in town I'll stop by Walmart and pick up a new card. Hopefully they have one of the ones known to "work" at our Walmart.

I'll post my results with the new card, and if it doesn't work, then at least I have two SD cards to try the multi-partition method (and I'll post my results with that method as well).

EDIT: Just for more info, I've also tried with everything enabled, everything disabled and airplane mode on, and my usual settings (airplane off, 3g/gps on, wifi/bt off), but I obviously didn't have better luck with either setup.

I also checked out the Alltel CDMA Hero thread rhycheme just linked to, which links to a Root The Slide thread on AndroidSPIN. Anyway, an important step in that thread is unplugging the USB cable and plugging it back in in order to detect the device, but I didn't have any luck doing that (although I only tried this a few times). Probably because it says to do that once you're IN recovery, and I'm not getting into it yet.

EDIT2: I just finished reading all 111 pages of this thread. "Why??" Because I have no life. And because my family and I are driving to Maine Wednesday night, and while I can USB tether my phone to my Mini9 with Snow Leopard and broadcast a wireless signal that way, I'd rather not have my Mini on for 16 hours just so my sister can feed her virtual pets. So I'd really like to figure out how to root my Eris and have wifi-tether directly through it.

Since my initial post, I've also tried Windows XP SP3 through a USB 1.1 port with no luck. When I do "adb devices" with the phone booted normally, it will be listed so I know the drivers are fine. I just can't get into recovery. I never really thought the OS or USB port version would make a difference, since it's all about what's happening on the phone, but hey it doesn't hurt to try these things right?

While reading all 111 pages, I made note of all the different SD card brands used with success. Of the ones mentioned, there were a couple Kingston 8GBs, a RiDATA 4GB, and of course a slew of PNY 2GB cards (some Nat Geo, and some not [or they didn't mention it was a Nat Geo, someone got it working with an older PNY 2GB SD-C02G JAPAN though]). One of the Kingston 8GB's was really only used once IN recovery, and it was a PNY 2GB that got him into recovery in the first place.

I know some people have bought that PNY card and been unsuccessful (and at the end of the night I may be joining you), and I know someone mentioned "everyone is just following the voodoo so of course that card will appear a lot", but for so many people to have tried hundreds of times on non-PNY cards and fail, and then use the PNY card and get it on no more than the 10th try? There has got to be something about that card.

I do agree that the timing is very important, but consider this statistical argument. We're all following tereg's cadence, roughly, right? For those of us that have tried over a hundred times, if you produce a histogram of seconds-waited-to-insert-card vs. number-of-times-attempted (using whatever bin size you like), you would get a Gaussian distribution, with the mean near tereg's cadence. But there is some spread to that distribution, and so with enough trials (and I think 100 is enough), you will hit the correct timing. So I think there is something else to it.

There are the things I'm going to try:

1. A fresh RUU install, and fresh format of the SD card, since keeping a "clean card" popped up alot in the 111 pages (I had recovered all my data on it since, well, I need my phone for day-to-day use =P).

2. Formatting the SD card with HFS+, which was successful for one user to get into recovery (then use a card reader to reformat it to fat32 and finish the steps)

3. Try anoek's method (but with using a card reader to reformat the card, since I only have 1 card).

4. Buying the infamous NatGeo PNY 2GB that tereg just bought (please let our Walmart have it... please?)

Tereg, you've been doing all of this rooting from a VM, right?. You said in one of your posts that using your original good card, you could see the communication through VirtualBox between your phone and the VM (something about it broadcasting 0bb4:0ff9 in VIrtualBox), but with the two other cards you were experimenting with at the time, you couldn't see this broadcast. Are you noticing this broadcast with your new card you just bought? I just thought that was really interesting and wondered if it was reproducible with your new card.