Database Develop

bootloader

Is it possible to unlock?

At this moment, no.

You will know as it'll be reported here very early. There are some third party companies that do it. Some are cheaper than others.
For the moment, there is nothing..
Sucks I know

I asked this before on another similar thread and didn't get a response. Is it possible to dump the bootloader from either an unlocked or locked phone to analyse it for potential vulnerabilities either in how it handles the unlock code, or more generally that would allow a user to soft-mod unlock the phone? I know for the 5th, 7th, and 9th gen Fire 7 tablets exploits were found in the LK part of the bootloader which eventually allowed for a customised version of TWRP to be flashed onto the devices, and later LineageOS. If we could dump the current Huawei bootloader surely we could try to find if there are any similar exploits?

I am found metod but it needs mrt dongle((

Tbh custom roms aren't really important anymore. Google is already ruining android everytime a new update comes around, like the overlay feature that was introduced in oreo but then removed for no reason.
Besides EMUI is already optimised for the chip so, again, no reason for custom roms and/or rooting (unless you want to remove bloatware but that can be solved via ADB)

The Restless Soul said:
Tbh custom roms aren't really important anymore. Google is already ruining android everytime a new update comes around, like the overlay feature that was introduced in oreo but then removed for no reason.
Besides EMUI is already optimised for the chip so, again, no reason for custom roms and/or rooting (unless you want to remove bloatware but that can be solved via ADB)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am need it for root and lineage os

[noob] Understanding the bootloader/recovery/OS connection

I'm about to get an XZ1 Compact and I'm interested in exploring its files. I understand Windows, but Android's terminology is new to me. I'm unsure whether I understand correctly how Android works. Is this right?:
(1) When turned on, a small OS (the "bootloader") powers on, and its objects call
(2) objects in the "recovery partition," which in turn
(3) call the files and objects in the main partition which power the actual Android OS.
To change files in the main partition ("flashing ROM") either the new files' API's must match those in the previous OS or else files in the recovery partition also need to change ("be customized"). Similarly, changing the recovery partition requires either the same API calls from the bootloader or else changing the bootloader ("unlocking" it).
Is all that right? Does this mean doing something like installing TWRP (from the command line on my desktop, where I already have Android Studio and the Android SDK tools) means I have to "unlock" the bootloader too? [Is there a suggested web site or reference, besides this forum, with good info to teach me what I need to know to understand bootloaders, recovery partitions, custom ROMs, etc.?}
Thanks!
Al C.

acolburn3 said:
Is all that right? Does this mean doing something like installing TWRP (from the command line on my desktop, where I already have Android Studio and the Android SDK tools) means I have to "unlock" the bootloader too? [Is there a suggested web site or reference, besides this forum, with good info to teach me what I need to know to understand bootloaders, recovery partitions, custom ROMs, etc.?}
Thanks!
Al C.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi AI C,
What you described is basically how it works, although the bootloader decides what partition to load the operating system from. The recovery is located in the recovery partition and the bootloader can start it up the same way as an operating system and it allows users control over certain aspects of the phone such as wiping partitions and modifying the currently installed Android.
Here is a site that describes some of the terms:
https://trendblog.net/guide-to-android-rooting-custom-roms-apps/
In order to modify your Android operating system and flash a custom ROM you need to unlock the bootloader as the locked bootloader will only boot your stock firmware (Android OS) that came with your phone.
---------- Post added at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 PM ----------
The XZ1 compact is not the easiest device to learn these things with as Sony has locked certain parts of the OS using DRM (digital rights management) which requires a couple extra steps when unlocking the bootloader. Without these DRM keys the camera does not work.
Additionally not all XZ1 compacts bootloader's can be unlocked.
Check this PDF for instructions to unlocking the bootloader and backing up DRM keys:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/xp...-exploits-temp-root-to-backup-t3795510/page39
If you have any specific questions I'm happy to help.

Your explanation makes perfect sense, and those look like really useful links. Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. I'd read about the camera issues. Although some folks describe solutions (XperiFix?), I don't think I need Android 10 enough to want to risk flashing it yet. In the meantime, do installing a different recovery (TWRP?) or rooting the device require unlocking the bootloader, too?
p.s. If the answers to those questions are in the links you gave me, I'm perfectly OK being told "go read them!"

acolburn3 said:
Your explanation makes perfect sense, and those look like really useful links. Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. I'd read about the camera issues. Although some folks describe solutions (XperiFix?), I don't think I need Android 10 enough to want to risk flashing it yet. In the meantime, do installing a different recovery (TWRP?) or rooting the device require unlocking the bootloader, too?
p.s. If the answers to those questions are in the links you gave me, I'm perfectly OK being told "go read them!"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The short answer is yes. You need to unlock the bootloader in order to root and install a custom recovery.
The long answer is that there is a workaround using the Temp-Root solution provided by J4nn: https://forum.xda-developers.com/xp...devonly-exploits-temp-root-to-backup-t3795510
that is used to root the phone temporarily so that the DRM keys can be backed up. When you use the magisk version version of the exploit that is linked in the first post you have root access until you reboot the phone.
If you want to get root back you need to connect it to your computer using ADB (android debugging bridge) and send the commands again. Additionally it only works with a few certain android oreo based stock firmwares.
So it is not exactly a workable solution.
I have not heard of XperiFix before. The thread I linked by J4nn and the previous PDF I mentioned is the way that I bootloader unlocked my device and made sure I still have a working camera, although other methods might exist.
I'm glad I could help.

Installing custom rom/root/unlocking bootloader

Hey so since EMUI 10 hasn't been released yet to Honor Play devices (and won't be released any time soon) I've been looking for every possible way to manually flash a custom rom so I could upgrade myself to Android 10 or anything similiar, but as far as I know it is practically impossible. It always comes back to unlocking the bootloader which is by itself impossible too.
Every information regarding this more than a year old and I can't find new releavnt information.
I'm posting this thread to see if anyone knows of a workaround to this problem because I'm completely in the dark about this.
Is there anyway at all to install a newer EMUI/Android versions on Honor Play, either officiallyor unofficially?

It looks like there isn't and there probably won't be in the future either. There was some kind of manual bootloader unlock by opening the phone, but if I remember correctly you still needed a code. Unfortunately it's like this for any latest huawei phone. Unless huawei changes its mind about modding (narrator: it won't), we don't have many chances at it.

Question Xiaomi Mi 11 use for hardware research

Hi everyone. I have been lurking the forums a lot - there is a lot of useful info on mobile platforms here, more than anywhere else on the internet. I apologize in advance for a long post, but I feel like the only people who can answer my question are here on these forums. I am a graduate student at a university and my research project is on mobile SOC (System on Chip) architectures. As such, I want to grab an Android phone and evaluate its hardware performance using tools like simpleperf, which is a tool available from Android (it is their version of linux perf tool, which reads hardware counters directly from CPU's PMU (Performance monitoring unit)). Counters I am talking about are things like: cache misses, branch mispredictions, etc....
I was able to use the tool on my Pixel 5 after rooting it, but this is my personal phone and has older SOC (and I can not write to the file system, so I am using simpleperf by just displaying results in terminal), and my academic advisor told me that we can go ahead with the project and buy a new phone (with latest Snapdragon 888 SOC). I have in front of me Samsung S21 Ultra, but I am in Canada, so I have US version, and this phone can not be unlocked and/or rooted from what I understand, so we will be returning it and looking for another device (why claim you participate in open source when you lock your phone shut and prevent any development on it?)
As such, I am looking to buy Xiaomi Mi 11, root it, and use it to collect hardware counters. I live in Canada and so I would imagine I need to order the international version. So my questions to the esteemed members of this community are:
1. Am I right in assuming that Xiaomi Mi 11 can be rooted, so that I have root permissions on the underlying linux when I run adb shell and then su root. On my rooted Pixel 5 I have that.
2. Can the file system be mounted in RW mode? simpleperf can dump files with evaluation results and this requires writable file system.
3. If file system is not writable, is there a writable directory? For example, Samsung S21 has a directory /sd_card, to which I was able to write files. Is there something similar on Xiaomi Mi 11?
4. In general, are Xiaomi devices developer friendly? Do they have a bunch of special things installed like Odin on Samsung, or is it closer to Pixel devices by google, which are developer friendly?
Thank you very much!
Pavel.

Hey there. Sorry for not having all the answers for you but as no body wrote nothing yet I can just tell you that yes you can unlock bootloader and root your phone which should give you possible all the rights you need I hope
You can unlock developer options and there you can tweak some stuff. I am not developer but I do like to tweak
I think you should go ahead and buy mi 11 and research here what you can do with the device.
Note that you need to wait 168h to unlock the bootloader after applying for unlock.
Good Luck !

Thank you very much for response! Could you elaborate a little bit about 168h wait please? Is that 168 hours?
I also forgot to ask: is it possible to lock the bootloader after unlock and root?

Yes 168 hours that is 7 days of looong waiting.
It is but only on the rom that device came with. stock rom. If you change rom and want to lock it you might brick device (lock) but than again you can unlock it and fix it by yourself easily ,
I saw other user saying that he flashed global on orange rom and lock bootloader. but I think it is the same based rom so in his case it was possible.

I see. Thank you. 7 day wait is ok. I guess what I am trying to ask is whether I will be able to return device to original specifications?

Aha , yes I think there should not be problems. You just need to flash stock rom with lock all.bat command.
I advise you to research here and on the net how to properly unlock and other stuff while you wait for the device and unlock. there are steps to follow to have successful unlock and flash and other .

I see. Thank you very much!

Question US Unlocked but using T-Mobile SIM - How to Root safely, many ??s

Long story, but after travails with an Amazon-purchased Oneplus 9 Pro due to it being locked (T-Mobile!) and them refusing to unlock it....
I went to OnePlus and got myself a OnePlus 10 Pro Unlocked. Still have the T-Mobile sim, though.
My question....
I have been out of the rooted phone scene for some time. I had a Oneplus 2 rooted and a Samsung Note 4 and 5 rooted. But things are different now, I'm gathering. Plus this is a new phone and I don't want to toss away hundreds of dollars by bricking it.
I used TWRP back in the day. Flashed many a custom rom back then. But with this OnePlus, I already unlocked it which... is that the same as rooting it? And what are the benefits of rooting / flashing roms vs just going with what is currently on this US phone (Oxygen 13 but not 13.1 yet)? I kinda want to see TWRP on here, and back up my whole set up into files I can then copy to my computer(s) for safety's sake. At least I liked that feature when I had it w/ the OP 2 and others.
Trying to get back up to speed in the world of rooting as it stands now.
Thanks.

TWRP on this device is really, "make of it what you will." It doesn't fully support this phone officially, and the leaked versions don't support device decryption, so you'll be forced to not use a passcode on your phone.
You don't need TWRP anymore, you just need to be careful and know what you're doing. There's guides for every model here, although they're all basically the same. Try to avoid flashing anything from your PC to the phone, just flash inside Magisk and BOOT images.
From my knowledge the reason for this is there's hidden partitions from OPPO all over the filesystem and normal flashers don't take this into account, anyone just trying to flash a full zip has bricked.
Which leads me to, there's no full recovery for this device that's free. If you brick a file and end up boot looping both slots, you're gonna have to pay for a restore. Even with TWRP, from what I hear, full backups sometimes fail to restore properly on this device.
TL;DR Be careful, read guides, you'll be fine. Rooting (on this device, with a lack of full recovery, hence no custom ROMs or Kernels) is really just used for audio mods, photo mods like free google photos, extensive app mods, etc. If you're not actively looking into any of these, stock Android is pretty solid.

Prant said:
TWRP on this device is really, "make of it what you will." It doesn't fully support this phone officially, and the leaked versions don't support device decryption, so you'll be forced to not use a passcode on your phone.
You don't need TWRP anymore, you just need to be careful and know what you're doing. There's guides for every model here, although they're all basically the same. Try to avoid flashing anything from your PC to the phone, just flash inside Magisk and BOOT images.
From my knowledge the reason for this is there's hidden partitions from OPPO all over the filesystem and normal flashers don't take this into account, anyone just trying to flash a full zip has bricked.
Which leads me to, there's no full recovery for this device that's free. If you brick a file and end up boot looping both slots, you're gonna have to pay for a restore. Even with TWRP, from what I hear, full backups sometimes fail to restore properly on this device.
TL;DR Be careful, read guides, you'll be fine. Rooting (on this device, with a lack of full recovery, hence no custom ROMs or Kernels) is really just used for audio mods, photo mods like free google photos, extensive app mods, etc. If you're not actively looking into any of these, stock Android is pretty solid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for this.
I got as far as unlocking the phone and installing Magisk. But haven't gone further until I understand what the next step is.
Can I root non-destructively? Or is the phone wiped?

If you're unlocked and have Magisk installed, rooting is as easy as booting a patched boot image, then using Magisk to install it to your boot image. You have the choice of finding a matching one in one of the guides or pulling your own from a full zip.
It must match the firmware revision, I know for a fact personally that region matters little in case of NE2215/3, as you're only doing a one time boot.
I recommend @g96818 's guide here, you can find almost every firmware's boot image posted there if you prefer patch it yourself using Magisk or just boot an already patched one.

I have a 10 Pro (NE2215) rooted as a daily driver using TMO US.
Unlocked means 2 things in the android phone scene. Either it's carrier unlocked and can take any sim from any phone company or it bootloader unlocked which is needed to root and load custom roms.
There aren't any custom roms for the 10pro because of the lack of a full recovery system. Basically the ability to force full flash a stock rom in case the custom ROM soft bricks the phone. So that leaves rooting as the reason to unlock your bootloader.
I suggest reading the guide for rooting this phone, it's relatively easy. TWRP is unnecessary as it doesn't offer much without custom ROMs. Also you should back up everything on the phone that you don't want to lose because during the rooting process a factory reset will occur (android safety feature).