[Q] Rooting & Unlocking a Rezound in 2013 (w/Updates) - HTC Rezound

Hello All,
I bought my mom an HTC Rezound back in 2011 and given that I've been possessed with rooting, unlocking, and modding, I got my hands on her device the other day and nearly died when I saw all of the bloatware she had on it. Now she's at least updated to ICS, however I would like to root/unlock and mod her device so I can make it run a lot better.
The question is - what is the best way to root/unlock this device? I've read a lot of the XDA threads and done some Google searches, but most of the XDA guides are old and a lot of the comments (on XDA and Google) is that several of the methods don't work for the "updated" Rezounds. I reiterate that hers is an old version (original from 2011) but has the 2012/2013 updates.
If someone could please provide a link to a known working method for the 2012/2013 updated Rezounds, that would be great!
Thank you!
-Taxmaster

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The basic method hasn't changed. Unlock the bootloader at htcdev.com, flash a recovery with fastboot, then go from there. You might see stuff talking about charging problems with CWM...you can safely ignore that, it's old news. There is no issue with the new CWM. You might also see stories of issues flashing things with TWRP. Again, that's old news. The recent versions of TWRP have no issues. A lot use Amon-ra, but I don't like it and haven't used it since TWRP and CWM were fixed, so I can't really say much more about it.
Hansoon's all-in-one toolkit will still work fine with this phone through the initial
Kernels can't be flashed in recovery unless you go the extra step of getting S-OFF. They can still be flashed, but only through the bootloader (using either fastboot or a PH98IMG.zip, if the ROM or kernel provides it). S-OFF also removes version checks which normally prevents downgrading of radios and bootloader. However, this phone is essentially unbrickable while it's S-ON, so there is a tradeoff.
Keep in mind that unlocking this phone's bootloader will wipe /data and emmc, so find a way to backup anything important before you start.
As for ROMs, AOSP is 99% working now...it's actually better here now than it is on the Note 2, and I prefer it to Sense on this phone, but there are some great Sense ROMs out as well. The only caveat is that MHL is only working on Sense 3.6 and I think one Sense 4+ ROM...no AOSP ROM has it working and most Sense 4 ROMs don't.

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shrike1978 said:
The basic method hasn't changed. Unlock the bootloader at htcdev.com, flash a recovery with fastboot, then go from there. You might see stuff talking about charging problems with CWM...you can safely ignore that, it's old news. There is no issue with the new CWM. You might also see stories of issues flashing things with TWRP. Again, that's old news. The recent versions of TWRP have no issues. A lot use Amon-ra, but I don't like it and haven't used it since TWRP and CWM were fixed, so I can't really say much more about it.
Hansoon's all-in-one toolkit will still work fine with this phone through the initial
Kernels can't be flashed in recovery unless you go the extra step of getting S-OFF. They can still be flashed, but only through the bootloader (using either fastboot or a PH98IMG.zip, if the ROM or kernel provides it). S-OFF also removes version checks which normally prevents downgrading of radios and bootloader. However, this phone is essentially unbrickable while it's S-ON, so there is a tradeoff.
Keep in mind that unlocking this phone's bootloader will wipe /data and emmc, so find a way to backup anything important before you start.
As for ROMs, AOSP is 99% working now...it's actually better here now than it is on the Note 2, and I prefer it to Sense on this phone, but there are some great Sense ROMs out as well. The only caveat is that MHL is only working on Sense 3.6 and I think one Sense 4+ ROM...no AOSP ROM has it working and most Sense 4 ROMs don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for covering this so thoroughly! Can you clarify what Sense is and what (if any) advantage it has over AOSP? I have a Galaxy Note 2 so I haven't come across this before.
Also, my plan is to use TWRP and only flash ROMs that have a custom kernel as part of the ROM (no separate flashing).
Sent via Tapatalk 2 using my:
Verizon Galaxy Note 2 (SCH-I605)
Unlocked, Overclocked, and Undervolted
CleanROM 4.7 w/Perseus 33.6 Kernel

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Sense is HTC's overlay on top of Android...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Sense

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Ah, so Sense is to HTC as Touchwhiz is to Samsung.
Sent via Tapatalk 2 using my:
Verizon Galaxy Note 2 (SCH-I605)
Unlocked, Overclocked, and Undervolted
CleanROM 4.7 w/Perseus 33.6 Kernel

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Taxmaster said:
Ah, so Sense is to HTC as Touchwhiz is to Samsung.
Sent via Tapatalk 2 using my:
Verizon Galaxy Note 2 (SCH-I605)
Unlocked, Overclocked, and Undervolted
CleanROM 4.7 w/Perseus 33.6 Kernel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
100% correct with that. Personally i like the AOSP roms better then sense. they just seem to work very well and alot of bugs have been worked out and they seem alot quicker then sense roms. The few things that you are missing from not having a sense rom are min and not a lot of people really notice. I use Neo's Infection 2.5. great rom, great speed, and very stable

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clmowers said:
100% correct with that. Personally i like the AOSP roms better then sense. they just seem to work very well and alot of bugs have been worked out and they seem alot quicker then sense roms. The few things that you are missing from not having a sense rom are min and not a lot of people really notice. I use Neo's Infection 2.5. great rom, great speed, and very stable
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That actually was the ROM I was planning on using!
Here is my plan of attack (check to see if this looks okay):
Backup: MyBackup Pro (later on use Titanium Backup, but apparently temp. root doesn't work anymore after the ICS update).
Unlock/Root: Hassoon's All-In-One Kit: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1504824
ROM to flash: Neo's Infection 2.5: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2070947
Let me know if you give this plan of attack a thumbs up! Also, please let me know if you have any suggestions or things I should be aware of along the way!
Thanks!
-Taxmaster

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Taxmaster said:
That actually was the ROM I was planning on using!
Here is my plan of attack (check to see if this looks okay):
Backup: MyBackup Pro (later on use Titanium Backup, but apparently temp. root doesn't work anymore after the ICS update).
Unlock/Root: Hassoon's All-In-One Kit: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1504824
ROM to flash: Neo's Infection 2.5: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2070947
Let me know if you give this plan of attack a thumbs up! Also, please let me know if you have any suggestions or things I should be aware of along the way!
Thanks!
-Taxmaster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've never used the all-in-one kit. I was never a big fan of them, but other people have had good success with it. From what it looks like it would be the same as doing it step by step manually. so i would say use that.
But yea that looks good, also make sure if you are going to stay s-on, to extract the boot.img file from the rom and flash it in fastboot.
Also just remember when you go ahead and do the unlock from HTC, it WILL data wipe your phone, so anything that needs to be backed up back it up..as you did say backup i think you already know that
other then that i say thumbs up

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clmowers said:
I've never used the all-in-one kit. I was never a big fan of them, but other people have had good success with it. From what it looks like it would be the same as doing it step by step manually. so i would say use that.
But yea that looks good, also make sure if you are going to stay s-on, to extract the boot.img file from the rom and flash it in fastboot.
Also just remember when you go ahead and do the unlock from HTC, it WILL data wipe your phone, so anything that needs to be backed up back it up..as you did say backup i think you already know that
other then that i say thumbs up
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, well I plan to stay S-On given that when I flash Neo's Infection 2.5 ROM it includes the Hiro Kernel. I went to download his ROM (which version should I use btw? I downloaded Infection_2.5.zip and there are others that say inverted, slim, dev, etc.) and extracted boot.img. I haven't worked with fastboot yet so could you give me a brief walkthrough on how to proceed with that?
By the way, do you recommend the AMON RA recovery that Neo mentions? I'm personally a TWRP fan.
Thanks!
-Taxmaster

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Taxmaster said:
Okay, well I plan to stay S-On given that when I flash Neo's Infection 2.5 ROM it includes the Hiro Kernel. I went to download his ROM (which version should I use btw? I downloaded Infection_2.5.zip and there are others that say inverted, slim, dev, etc.) and extracted boot.img. I haven't worked with fastboot yet so could you give me a brief walkthrough on how to proceed with that?
By the way, do you recommend the AMON RA recovery that Neo mentions? I'm personally a TWRP fan.
Thanks!
-Taxmaster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah no problem.
the difference are this
Slim is basiclly a stripped down version of the rom, min amount of apps and stuff no google stuff or anything..you have to download each thing seperate
the dev version is the one he uses to dev with, it was more less setup for Neo to use and play with for testing..nothing special with it just more stripped down then the standards
the inverted and non inverted are the same roms. the big difference is the inverted uses a dark them with bright lettering where as the non inverted uses a light theme with dark lettering. this also has the google apps installed
I use the inverted as i think it looks cool, always like the darker themed stuff. personal pref on that tho
fastboot is pretty simple to use. First you will need to download it.. ive always used the android SDK and then downloaded it from that and then removed the SDK. If you do some digging around im sure you can find the fastboot and adb stuff by itself.
so once you get the phone unlocked via htcdev you need to flash the recovery file. I do use amon ra like neo suggest. TWRP and CMW work just as well now that they fixed alot of the issues they were having. Im like amon so i tend to stick with it..its clean easy to use and never had a problem with it
to flash the recovery, you will need to use fastboot
to enter fastboot, pull the battery and put it back in, hold down the power and vol down button till you get the bootloader, then use the vol keys to select fastboot, then hit the power button. plug the phone into the computer
open the command prompt and go to where you have fastboot downloaded and then make sure the recovery img is there
type fastboot flash recovery recovery.img then hit enter. This will flash the recovery to the phone,
then do your typical flashing of the rom in the recovery. after you have flashed the rom, if you are using amon, back out till you hit the main menu and go down to dev options and select boot to bootloader..this will reboot your phone into the bootloader again, then just go back into the fastboot like you did to flash recovery. then open up the rom with a zip program like 7zip winrar and you will see a boot.img file. take that file out and put it in the same location as the recovery file on your computer that also has the fastboot program
go back to the command promt and type
fastboot flash boot boot.img to install the boot img into the phone and then when its down you can reboot..all should be good to go
hopefully this make since to you lol if not let me know and i will clearify it
---------- Post added at 08:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------
Oh and one last thing he no longer includes hiro for the kernel. The stock kernel with that ROM is snuzzo funkybean
Sent from my Infected Rezound using Tapatalk 2

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clmowers said:
yeah no problem.
the difference are this
Slim is basiclly a stripped down version of the rom, min amount of apps and stuff no google stuff or anything..you have to download each thing seperate
the dev version is the one he uses to dev with, it was more less setup for Neo to use and play with for testing..nothing special with it just more stripped down then the standards
the inverted and non inverted are the same roms. the big difference is the inverted uses a dark them with bright lettering where as the non inverted uses a light theme with dark lettering. this also has the google apps installed
I use the inverted as i think it looks cool, always like the darker themed stuff. personal pref on that tho
fastboot is pretty simple to use. First you will need to download it.. ive always used the android SDK and then downloaded it from that and then removed the SDK. If you do some digging around im sure you can find the fastboot and adb stuff by itself.
so once you get the phone unlocked via htcdev you need to flash the recovery file. I do use amon ra like neo suggest. TWRP and CMW work just as well now that they fixed alot of the issues they were having. Im like amon so i tend to stick with it..its clean easy to use and never had a problem with it
to flash the recovery, you will need to use fastboot
to enter fastboot, pull the battery and put it back in, hold down the power and vol down button till you get the bootloader, then use the vol keys to select fastboot, then hit the power button. plug the phone into the computer
open the command prompt and go to where you have fastboot downloaded and then make sure the recovery img is there
type fastboot flash recovery recovery.img then hit enter. This will flash the recovery to the phone,
then do your typical flashing of the rom in the recovery. after you have flashed the rom, if you are using amon, back out till you hit the main menu and go down to dev options and select boot to bootloader..this will reboot your phone into the bootloader again, then just go back into the fastboot like you did to flash recovery. then open up the rom with a zip program like 7zip winrar and you will see a boot.img file. take that file out and put it in the same location as the recovery file on your computer that also has the fastboot program
go back to the command promt and type
fastboot flash boot boot.img to install the boot img into the phone and then when its down you can reboot..all should be good to go
hopefully this make since to you lol if not let me know and i will clearify it
---------- Post added at 08:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------
Oh and one last thing he no longer includes hiro for the kernel. The stock kernel with that ROM is snuzzo funkybean
Sent from my Infected Rezound using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, so here's where I'm at:
1. I downloaded the Android SDK and installed it. I went into the folder Downloads/adtbundle..../sdk/platform-tools
In this directory I see an adb and a fastboot file. When I try to open and run either one of them, a window opens and terminates less than a minute after. I don't know if this is normal or not if if I'm supposed to use a different directory, but this is where I extracted these files to. (x64 Win 7 Ultimate btw).
2. When you say open the command prompt, which one are we talking about here and how do I get to it? When I think of command prompt, I'm thinking Windows "Run" (start+R).
3. You noted to have the amon ra recovery in the same directory as fastboot (at least that is what I believe you're inferring). Is the directory I noted above the appropriate place to put this Ra3.15PH98IMG.img file in? Am I supposed to leave it in this format?
4. Do I type "fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" in verbatim or do I type in something else (a different command), perhaps fastboot flash recovery Ra3.15PH98IMG.img ?
5. I'm confused regarding when I'm supposed to flash the ROM itself using Amon Ra. It seems like first I unlock, then I use fastboot to install Amon Ra, then I use fastboot to install the image extracted from the Infection 2.5zip. Once this is all done, then do I flash the Infection2.5.zip itself using Amon Ra?
6. How is the snuzzo funkybean kernel? Is it a better kernel than the Hiro? Overclock etc?
Sorry in advance for the many clarifying questions lol, the last thing I want is to break my mother's phone and be on the hook to buy her a new one lol.
-Taxmaster

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Taxmaster said:
Okay, so here's where I'm at:
1. I downloaded the Android SDK and installed it. I went into the folder Downloads/adtbundle..../sdk/platform-tools
In this directory I see an adb and a fastboot file. When I try to open and run either one of them, a window opens and terminates less than a minute after. I don't know if this is normal or not if if I'm supposed to use a different directory, but this is where I extracted these files to. (x64 Win 7 Ultimate btw).
2. When you say open the command prompt, which one are we talking about here and how do I get to it? When I think of command prompt, I'm thinking Windows "Run" (start+R).
3. You noted to have the amon ra recovery in the same directory as fastboot (at least that is what I believe you're inferring). Is the directory I noted above the appropriate place to put this Ra3.15PH98IMG.img file in? Am I supposed to leave it in this format?
4. Do I type "fastboot flash recovery recovery.img" in verbatim or do I type in something else (a different command), perhaps fastboot flash recovery Ra3.15PH98IMG.img ?
5. I'm confused regarding when I'm supposed to flash the ROM itself using Amon Ra. It seems like first I unlock, then I use fastboot to install Amon Ra, then I use fastboot to install the image extracted from the Infection 2.5zip. Once this is all done, then do I flash the Infection2.5.zip itself using Amon Ra?
6. How is the snuzzo funkybean kernel? Is it a better kernel than the Hiro? Overclock etc?
Sorry in advance for the many clarifying questions lol, the last thing I want is to break my mother's phone and be on the hook to buy her a new one lol.
-Taxmaster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your totally fine buds, i tend to not make thing totally clear..its my learning disabilty, i think of it in my head but sometimes my fingers dont always type what i think. so lets take this 1 step at a time
as you have downloaded the SDK already i will skip that..but here pretty much the step by step. If you are using the all-in-one
1.) Go to http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/ and fill out the form, it tells you how to do everything from the site on how to unlock your phone
2.) Once you have unlocked it, you will need to install the custom recovery amon ra
3.) make a directory under the c drive called phone and copy the platform-tools from the SDK there. so you should see something like this
C:\phone\fastboot.exe
C:\phone\adb.exe
etc....
4 copy the boot.img and the recovery img to c:\phone (for ease rename amon to recovery.img)
5.) pull the battery on your phone and reinstall it...hold down power button and the vol down button
6.) once you are in the bootloader select fastboot from the menu and hit the power button
7.) connect the phone via usb to the computer and open a command prompt window ( Crtl + r then type cmd and hit enter)
8.) type in cd\ and then hit enter
9.) type cd c:\phone and then hit enter
10.) type fastboot flash recovery recovery.img and then hit enter...you should see it loading and end up saying succesfull
11.) go back into the bootloader by selecting it from the menu on the phone and then use the vol down key to select recovery. this will boot into amon
12.) once you are in amon, select mount as usb drive..i think its the second option in the menu and then mount either of the sd cards.
13.) copy the ROM zip the phone and then once its down hit the power button to turn that function off
14.) go to the wipe menu and wipe everything 3 times, this will give your phone a clean slate
15.) back out and then select the flash zip menu and then select where you saved the rom and let it flash away.
16.) once you have flashed back out to the main menu again and then select the dev option in the menu and select reboot to bootloader, you are going to select fastboot again.
do steps 9 and 10 again if you closed the previous window other wise type in fastboot flash boot boot.img, and you will see a similuar screen like you did on the recovery file, once its done reboot your phone and you are now running a custom rom
I dont think that funky is overclocked by default, but the option is there to over/under click if thats your liking. Ive always had good luck with his kernals so i tend to stick to snuzzos kernals. ive used Hiro before and never really noticed much of a huge difference between the two. I live by the saying if it isnt broke dont fix it. so tend to stick with the funky just because i know it works and its never given me problems
hopefully this clears things up

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clmowers said:
13.) copy the ROM zip the phone and then once its down hit the power button to turn that function off
14.) go to the wipe menu and wipe everything 3 times, this will give your phone a clean slate
15.) back out and then select the flash zip menu and then select where you saved the rom and let it flash away.
16.) once you have flashed back out to the main menu again and then select the dev option in the menu and select reboot to bootloader, you are going to select fastboot again.
do steps 9 and 10 again if you closed the previous window other wise type in fastboot flash boot boot.img, and you will see a similuar screen like you did on the recovery file, once its done reboot your phone and you are now running a custom rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I followed you up to step 13 (thanks for getting me this far btw!)
Questions:
1. You say to copy the ROM zip "the phone" and then once "its down" hit the power button to turn that function off. I'm totally confused as to what this means. For one, I don't know if I'm supposed to copy the Infection2.5.zip to the C:\phone or to the extSDCard. Then I just don't follow what you mean by "its down" and "turn that function off".
2. Just to clarify, it sounds like this is the order of operations (excluding wipes):
--Unlock/Root
--Fastboot Recovery
--Use Recovery to Flash ROM
--Fastboot boot.img (from ROM)
--Reboot system (restart phone)
Does this seem correct? Also, is there a cache/dalvik-cache clear in order at some point?
Thanks!
-Taxmaster

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Taxmaster said:
I followed you up to step 13 (thanks for getting me this far btw!)
Questions:
1. You say to copy the ROM zip "the phone" and then once "its down" hit the power button to turn that function off. I'm totally confused as to what this means. For one, I don't know if I'm supposed to copy the Infection2.5.zip to the C:\phone or to the extSDCard. Then I just don't follow what you mean by "its down" and "turn that function off".
2. Just to clarify, it sounds like this is the order of operations (excluding wipes):
--Unlock/Root
--Fastboot Recovery
--Use Recovery to Flash ROM
--Fastboot boot.img (from ROM)
--Reboot system (restart phone)
Does this seem correct? Also, is there a cache/dalvik-cache clear in order at some point?
Thanks!
-Taxmaster
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry those were miss types lol it should read this
copy the ROM to the sdcard and then once its done hit the power button to turn off usb mass storage
Basiclly what you are doing is copying infection 2.5 to your SDcard on your phone itself so you can flash it
Yes that would be the correct order.
As for wiping when you get into the wipe menu you will see the caches, and yes you will have to wipe both cache and devlik cache
Your very welcome btw

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clmowers said:
Basiclly what you are doing is copying infection 2.5 to your SDcard on your phone itself so you can flash it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One last clarification, when you say to the "SDcard on your phone itself" do you mean extSDCard or sdcard0 ? My plan was to insert the extSDCard while the phone is currently running the stock ROM, format it, connect it to the PC (MTP) and then copy/paste the Infection2.5.zip over to it (extSDCard). I would then leave that file on the extSDCard and use it as the reference directory for the ROM flash. Is this appropriate, or is it required to store the ROM zip on sdcard0 (built-in memory)?
Thank you!
-Taxmaster

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Yes the exsdcard will work. That's the external sdcard and will work just fine As for getting the ROM on the extsdcard..that's totally up to you. It just need to be there for flashing
Sent from my Infected Rezound using Tapatalk 2

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clmowers said:
Yes the exsdcard will work. That's the external sdcard and will work just fine As for getting the ROM on the extsdcard..that's totally up to you. It just need to be there for flashing
Sent from my Infected Rezound using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alrighty then! I'm going to go for it and I'll let you know how it goes!
-Taxmaster

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Its sounds more complicated then it really is...yea def let me know how it goes. If you have any questions along the way just ask
Sent from my Infected Rezound using Tapatalk 2

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I just wanted to let everyone know that I got my mom's phone up and running using this method! Thank you guys for all of your help!
Sent via Tapatalk 2 using my:
Verizon Galaxy Note 2 (SCH-I605)
Unlocked, Overclocked, and Undervolted
Bean's ROM 18 w/Perseus 33.6 Kernel

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Wouldn't it be great if everyone got answers like this?
Sent from my SCH-I925 using Tapatalk HD