Recovery + Root for Sola - Sony Xperia P, U, Sola, Go

Hi I'm new to the Sola and while it's been in the market a few months, I haven't seen much about rooting or recoveries...
Rooting
Is it true that for now, you can only root by using an auto-root kernel or flash a pre-rooted image?
Recovery
I haven't seen any recoveries in the Sola dev section. Can we download these as apps or are they just in some kernels? Any other way?
Bootloader Unlocking
To do any of the above, you must unlock the bootloader? Did Sony not say recently that this will probably void warranty?
Thanks, and hopefully this will be useful to all new Sola users...
p.s. I note that the Sola has the same chipset as a number of other Sony 2012 devices...that helps for porting, no? :victory:

I just found this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1669906&highlight=sola
If you search Sola, recovery etc. you will NOT find this I believe so it's good to get it noticed. Though the work in that thread is fantastic and we are lucky.

Related

[Q] General stuff about xperia rooting etc

Hello, I have just preordered my Xperia active from a local salesperson, but from what i see in the development threads, its nothing like HTC phones when it comes to rooting.
In HTC phones all you had to do is, unlock the bootloader with an update.zip file, root it, and then you're free to do whatever you wanna do from CWM.
I really havent understood how the procedure goes in Xperia phones, nor is there a comprehensive guide towards rooting the phone.
So could someone explain in simple steps what i need to do to root the phone? Or even is it worth rooting it since its so new and the development is more or less... inexistant? The only real custom rom I see so far for the mini mini pro and active is the FXP one which is in beta stages AFAIK.
Also about unlocking the bootloader. Losing DRM and TrackID is what makes them know that you have unlocked it therefore you lose your warranty?
Please enlighten me
Comprehensive Xperia Rooting Guide:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1034087
For the active... there doesn't appear to be much, but if you have 'OCD' like me and like the absolute control... it's worth it. But to each his/her own preferences
Once you unlock, DRM is permanently gone, no more TrackID.
I'm not sure about warranty regulations but there is a way to re-lock the boot loader:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1134335
Hope this helps.
EDIT There's also a way to unlock the bootloader and not lose DRM
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1285285
But there's no current way to relock it if you use that route.
Thanks a lot for your detailed reply.
Although i still got questions regarding custom ROM's. I saw someone mentioning a insecure kernel, and using it before flashing a new ROM. Kernels in HTC devices are simply there for you to find out which one is best for your country and ROM. Is it the other way around here?
Yes i do want the best out of my device, but voiding warranty for something that isnt yet "ready".... It kinda puts me off.
hi dumraden,
The days with simply zip unlocking are gone either on HTC. The HTC Desire S of a friend of mine was locked. They call it S: on ..unlocked was S: off
I could not keep joking about who was so silly to convert his Desire S back to a Desire.. sorry for that
The step with the insecure kernel is to flash a stock rom where we know a method to use an exploit on it. Sony prevents unsigned firmware from beeing flashed to their devices (compare ps3 or PSP). Thus we need to make use of an exploit to get access to the device to make rooting possible. As root we are the master of desaster and can do what ever we want.
Warranty? Okay, there is a possibility to relock the bootloader in case you'll run in the case of needing warranty. Otherwise there are ways to make it that unsuable that even the support cannot wake it up thus find no real reason for the error.
This is not an FXP ROM, it is cyanogenmod ported by Team freeXperia and mainly released by FXP. It is almost ready. The smartkeyboard and camera did not work on my selfcompiled one on friday. FXP claimed camera would work. Could be my fault.. who cares. They'll get it fixed.. I think soon.
Yea i am a prior HTC user, have my Desire Z getting fixed as we talk ( i hope so at least ).
So basically the insecure kernel works as an exploit for us to install custom roms on the phones. Cool thanks for the heads up.
Wasnt FXP working with cyanogen to build a kernel from scratch in order for us not to have to go through the hassle of using a modded stock kernel for the Custom ROM's? As far as i can tell this is a breakthrough for Xperia phones since we will be able to have an AOSP base in order to build from there up. Right?
I have the same rooting problem. I use superOnClick and gingerbreak but didn't work.
I'm new to android so that keep searching and reading xda..
Then I start using android sdk & fastboot and adb mode said in one of the topics, but fastboot didn't work even though bootloader is unlocked.
I'm confused, waiting for help
Sent from my ST15i using XDA App
Its all here. Read some posts

[Q] Rooting & ICS ?

Just got an xperia mini and have some questions about rooting & Ice Cream Sandwich....
I want to root it to uninstall space taking apps, not much of tinkerer apart from that.
If I root it now, will that mean I'm not able to update to ICS when its made available?
Will I need to unroot? (if so how do I do that?)
Or am I just better off waiting for ICS, and then rooting? If so what are the chances ICS will be rootable?
thanks in advance!
I didn't cared about ICS updated,i just rooted my Mini PRO to remove apps
and i felt that after rooting my mobile became more powerful
Try it at your own risk
You may use doomloards help for rooting,search the forum here on xda
And i don't think unrooting will help you to recover your warranty
as after rooting you wont be able to keep your mobile under warranty and auto updates will no longer work
I used ftf packeges to update my Mini Pro,you may try that if you want to update your Xperia Mini
philippe3000 said:
Just got an xperia mini and have some questions about rooting & Ice Cream Sandwich....
I want to root it to uninstall space taking apps, not much of tinkerer apart from that.
If I root it now, will that mean I'm not able to update to ICS when its made available?
Will I need to unroot? (if so how do I do that?)
Or am I just better off waiting for ICS, and then rooting? If so what are the chances ICS will be rootable?
thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can go ahead and root your device, doomlords has now a rooting technique that will allow you to root your device without unlocking the bootloader plus you can get official updates and you can reload any official firmware for your device.
Unlocking bootloader will void your warranty bur you can install a custom firmware/rom just like Cyanogen Mod.
Basically rooting will just add a super user account on your device, but still you can enjoy getting official updates from SE.
I have WT19i (SE Live with Walkman) rooted but boot loader locked.
DrearierJester1 said:
you can go ahead and root your device, doomlords has now a rooting technique that will allow you to root your device without unlocking the bootloader plus you can get official updates and you can reload any official firmware for your device.
Unlocking bootloader will void your warranty bur you can install a custom firmware/rom just like Cyanogen Mod.
Basically rooting will just add a super user account on your device, but still you can enjoy getting official updates from SE.
I have WT19i (SE Live with Walkman) rooted but boot loader locked.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks... i have Xperia Ray and wanted to root too but was afraid to miss the ICS update in march ...
i just want to delete all these 10+ "system" programs i don't want...

What firmware to install

Hi i have a brand new xperia pro with .58 firmware
i have:
- rooted phone
- CWR to install some patches
i am happy with phone as it is but i want for example call recording.
my question is:
- what is the best kernel ?
- what is the best firmware ?
previously i had a x10 mini and used NaA CM wich was great.
what kerner and firmware do you advise me to use and what the advantages over stock?
regards
The first thing you probably need to do is unlock your bootloader. I used the paperclip method to unlock mine.
Then you should flash the stock 0.62 firmware.
Then you should flash a custom kernel. bbooff's and KRsH both work well.
Then you should flash a custom ROM. HYBROM by bbooff is awesome.
Before you do any of the things I suggested make sure you read the forums first. It does not take a genius to flask the SK17i, but there are always times when it could go wrong.
As long as you don't mess up the bootloader thing then you can always flash a new ROM so you don't have to worry.
Oh. And make sure you read the thread titles correctly. I have been reading a thread a few times on here when I thought it was for [MiniPro] but I was actually reading a [Mini] thread by mistake.
Good luck!
for Xperia mini Pro HYBROM is great i think. and for Kernels there are 3 Kernels by now. KRsH, Rage and X Kernel. all are in Development forum.
i', using KRsH v3 and it's cool.
you should test each one, it's kind of individual.
Wrong section by the way
One extra tip I will give is when you install the Flashtool drivers there are no drivers for Xperia MiniPro, it says X10 MiniPro or somwthing like that. Just ignore and choose the generic fastboot drivers.
You can download Flashtool from the first sticky thread in this forum but just use generic Fastboot drivers. It took me ages to figure it out but it works for 2011 Xperia models.
HI. what is the CLIP method to unlock xperia mini? will i loose warranty with this method?
Sadly any method of unlocking the phone will potentially invalidate the warrenty.
The advantages of the paperclip method are that it should work with any version of the phone, including ones that can't be unlocked with the official Sony tool and that it shouldn't mess up the DRM used by things like TrackID (which the Sony unlocker breaks)
unfornettly the pictures on current guides are not very easy to understand.
anyone have video of unlocking the pro ?

A Plea From A Desperate Forum member

Hi Friends I've recently swiched from xperia ray to xperia j. I still have my ray and keep it up to date with mods & the latest firmware but the j forum is completely deserted were stuck on primitive stock firmware because we have no cwm recovery for our device all we have is a moded miro cwm wich only works on .18 & 28 firmware and the new firmware is 7,5 and we can not update on locked bootloader because the cwm just does not cut it and i dont see a dev to develop it. doomlord is to busy with sudies to help so if any senior developer can help us we would love you to peaces the most bacic thing a part from root is cwm and we dont even have it so please someone help. Just look on the forum and see how deserted it is.
gavster26 said:
Hi Friends I've recently swiched from xperia ray to xperia j. I still have my ray and keep it up to date with mods & the latest firmware but the j forum is completely deserted were stuck on primitive stock firmware because we have no cwm recovery for our device all we have is a moded miro cwm wich only works on .18 & 28 firmware and the new firmware is 7,5 and we can not update on locked bootloader because the cwm just does not cut it and i dont see a dev to develop it. doomlord is to busy with sudies to help so if any senior developer can help us we would love you to peaces the most bacic thing a part from root is cwm and we dont even have it so please someone help. Just look on the forum and see how deserted it is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I highly suggest you to contact a kernel developer of our section so that he/she helps you to integrate cwm into the kernel ramdisk ( this will be permanent and not on the system partition ). Also, in default.prop of the ramdisk, make ro.secure=0 for adb root. Once you have CWM, get the latest Superuser binaries from here - http://androidsu.com/superuser/
By this way, any firmware version should become easy to root. I would love to help you, but I don't know how to integrate CWM into ramdisk.
Also, try extracting the zImage and ramdisk from your stock rom using this - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1659584
I will also try to root your latest firmware. Don't worry, there will be many devs soon. Good luck.
Note : - The above mentioned steps are only for unlocked bootloader, as it is not possible to flash custom kernels with locked bootloader.
abcdjdj said:
I highly suggest you to contact a kernel developer of our section so that he/she helps you to integrate cwm into the kernel ramdisk ( this will be permanent and not on the system partition ). Also, in default.prop of the ramdisk, make ro.secure=0 for adb root. Once you have CWM, get the latest Superuser binaries from here - http://androidsu.com/superuser/
By this way, any firmware version should become easy to root. I would love to help you, but I don't know how to integrate CWM into ramdisk.
Also, try extracting the zImage and ramdisk from your stock rom using this - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1659584
I will also try to root your latest firmware. Don't worry, there will be many devs soon. Good luck.
Note : - The above mentioned steps are only for unlocked bootloader, as it is not possible to flash custom kernels with locked bootloader.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I no my phones branded so no unlocked bootloader The cm10 kernels obviously have cwm but i can't flash them. a kernel dev from this forum is trying to develop custom stock kernels for miro tipo & j. his first words on his thread was "I Can't believe hoe deserted this forum is". i guse i'll have to go back to my ray for a while.

[Q] Unlocking Xperia Z2 not on official Sony site

Ok, so i have my Z2 for a few months and i couldn't find any information regarding of benefits on
different ways to unlock bootloader? There is an option unlocking over a official site and unlocking
with flashtool, i kindly accept any advice.
Also, i had Desire HD, it had unlocked BL, eng s-off and everything else, but i only had to flash a rom and
thats it i can start using it. The process of flashing roms was a childs play, but on Z2 i have to flash boot.img
(i think thats kernel) over a fastboot and then flash rom from recovery separately, so is there a chance of unlocking Z2
the same way?
Thread closed
Duplicate of this thread you have already posted in the wrong section
http://forum.xda-developers.com/xpe...king-xperia-z2-official-t3004681#post58222329
I will move that for you to this section.

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