[EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] k2buckley:
Whoa, thanks dude. I'm going to try that right now. I made my last post as you were typing that up apparently, I was ready to throw in the towel, but I'm going to try what you said. Thats very very close to what i was doing, out of all the different tutorials i was trying to follow.

I still couldn't find the .exe or .dll files, so I have no clue what happened there. I'm going to try re installing sdk all together and see if I can get this. Thanks again dude, I know it's late, I appreciate you taking the time to type that up.

. I'm going to give this a try.

And yes, by the way, the drivers listed in my "safely remove hardware" are the same as what you have there. I'm reinstalling the sdk tools now. Hopefully that adb.exe file is there. Before, all that was there was 'adb', among some other folders. I'm assuming there needs to be one that is actually 'adb.exe', correct? when i clicked on the properties of that 'adb' one that was there, it said 'file type: .exe (application)'. Is that what I'm looking for?

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

that is the site I downloaded the sdk tools from, the one for windows that says 'installer ro8 windows.exe (recommended) Does that appear to be the correct one? Once i downloaded that, the installer popped up, installed everything, then sdk manager popped up, requested that I download and install some stuff (android platforms?). Once that's finished, that should be it, right? Just want to make sure I haven't been missing a step or something.

(and thanks for your patience with me, I'm learning though. all the flashing I've done in the past few months, still can't believe that I never took to the time to learn adb. now I know why people are against Unrevoked, cuz I didn't learn sh!t by doing that. A few clicks and I was rooted and flashing away!)

well. I fubared something, ha. This is becoming comical. I followed what you said. The only thing is, which I'm sure this is the issue...after sdk tools installed again, there was still no 'adb.exe' folder in platform-tools. just 'adb'. The adbwinapi.dll was there, and i copied it to "windows/system32" I copied the 'adb' to that folder as well. So either the 'adb' that i copied was incorrect, and I have no idea where that damned 'adb.exe' is at, or i was supposed to move or cut them, rather than copy. either way, i give up for tonight, need some sleep.

when I opened a command prompt, and typed 'adb devices', a windows error with a red x pops up (outside the command prompt) that reads "this application has failed to start because AdbWinApi.dll was not found. Re installing the application may fix the problem". Then I click ok.. Then it says "adb.exe has stopped working, a problem caused the program to stop working correctly. windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available" HA. DAMn I suck.

Not thinking clearly right now, need some sleep. Thanks again, hopefully we can get this straightened out tomorrow, or later today i guess it is now, damn its late.

Edit!! whoa! My final attempt was to copy the adbwinapi.dll to windows\system (instead of system32), and i believe that worked. I typed in adb devices, and I got "list of devices attached HT0###L00069 device" I assume that's my Evo? Hooray! Thank you so much man, I cannot express how happy I am right now, ha. That adb reboot kicked ass, lol. Now I can learn some stuff.

Finally, last question. My friend (who's phone I was going to root) had to leave hours ago. I was using my phone to do this and get it working. When I go to root her phone, in theory, should it connect to adb just fine at this point? Thanks again man, you were a huge, massive help. :)