[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Techrocket9:
Keep at it!

0. Please read everything before doing anything. My post is a little chaotic, but you should be fine if you read everything

first

.

1/2. The usual disclaimer: I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm just providing information. I'm not liable for anything you do to you phone.

1. ROM Manager is definitely the easiest way, though the "real way" is to load your ROM of choice on the SD card and then flash it from Recovery (more on recovery later).

1 & 1/2. By the way, you should install Titanium backup from the market five minutes ago. Yes, it is that important. When jumping ROMs, you often have to wipe everything out. Without Titanium Backup, you could end up having to

repurchase

apps and redownload all of your free ones, losing progress in games and settings in apps, etc. The free version of Titanium Backup lets you back up easily enough, but you want the donate version to prevent restores from taking a few hours of user interaction (Yes, I said user interaction, meaning sitting there and pressing buttons for hours). Once you throw $4.00-$50.00 (you can pick within that range, you get the same product regardless of amount) at Titanium Backup (and wait a day or so to get the license key file), you can do a restore in 15 min without any interaction beyond hitting start (or, more accurately, begin batch process). This app has saved my life time and time again. I literally did my first backup out of curiosity for the app and then totaled my phone in the next five minuets. It even backs up your home screen layout. GET IT NOW!!! YOU WILL HATE YOURSELF IF YOU DO NOT GET IT!!! At least get the free version, because, as stated above, it does backups fine. You (like me) will be scared into paying when you realize that you just wreaked everything and really don't want to spend the next few hours restoring. However, Titanium backup will not function until you get Superuser app working, as detailed in point 2 below.

***EDIT: I forgot to mention that Titanium Backup should work after running this program. It should even fix clockwork for you***

2. There are three possibilities for that error: 1: You don't have the superuser app installed. It dishes out the privileges. If you don't have it (if you do go on to potential issue number two and be grateful), you can install it by downloading this file and putting it on the root of the SD card. Then boot into recovery (I'm sure there is a tutorial for getting into recovery floating around here somewhere, just search the EVO section) and flash the .zip Presto! Superuser app is installed. If you prefer not to go around flashing random packages recommended by strangers on the internet, you can research and download superuser app at the source 2: If you found the Superuser app in the app drawer (the screen with all the applications where you scroll down in alphabetical order and pick the one you want to use), open it. You may have bumped "never give superuser access to this app" (or words to that effect) the first time you opened ROM Manager. If so, it will be listed in the Superuser app as red. Just have the superuser app forget ROM Manager and then try to flash custom recovery from within the ROM Manager again, being sure to say "Yes!" when it asks for superuser privileges. 3: If you have no recovery to flash superuser from or superuser is installed and ROM Manager is green inside and it still fails, the SimpleRoot failed. If you skipped a step in the rooting process, go back and do that step. If not, just start over and run all the steps from the beginning, Also note that if you accepted the over the air update, you need the OTA version of SimpleRoot, not the original one.

3. Now, about total reversal. I'll be honest: There is probably a way to go back to stock that works without finishing the root process (probably something to do with PC36IMG.zip) files, but I don't know it. The way I would do it would be picking the OTA Stock ROM from this page and flashing it after getting recovery installed at the end of a successful root process. However, then you would have succeed in your original endeavor and would have no need to go back. There is a program here that supposedly does just enough tweaking to the phone to give you the recovery you need to flash back to the stock ROM, but I have not used it myself and therefore cannot vouch for it.

If you both succeed in the root process (and I encourage you to persevere, the reward is spectacular), I personally recommend Cyanogen Mod 6. I believe that you can get the nightly builds of CM6 from ROM manager, but the release candidate is likely more stable. I use the RC myself and have never looked back. My battery lasts forever and my phone is never unresponsive. And because the CM6 ROM is based of of Android 2.2 (Froyo), free tethering is built in to the OS and done so rather elegantly, meaning no more dirty hacks for tethering. Just know that if you go that route, though you have the best of the best, you will need to tinker a bit to get everything working. Also, 4G, the FM Radio, and HDMI output are flat out not working in the RC (I'm sure they will be fully functional in the final release, and the not-workedness is a software thing, meaning that the hardware is fine and will come online when you again install a ROM that supports it). On the other hand, with this ROM you can force the phone to roam on Verizon's network when Sprint's 3G speeds are less than desirable.

I'm not sure where to put this, so I'm sticking it here. As soon as you get custom recovery working, you want to backup with Nandroid. The easiest way is from ROM Manager. Just hit "Backup ROM". This backs up not only your setup (like Titanium Backup), but also all the crucial bits that lie underneath and keep your EVOs humming, bits very very difficult to replace. HOWEVER, this is NOT a replacement for Titanium Backup, because it can only restore to the same ROM. If you attempt to restore to a different one, it will put the one you had at the time of the backup back on.

Whichever way you go, I wish the both of you luck. You're entering into the wild and wonderful world of devices that you actually own!