Unable To Access Fastboot Mode On Walmart Tracfone (TCL A501DL - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hello,
I recently purchased this TCL A1 (A501DL) from Walmart, with the intent of rooting it. It runs android oreo, 8.1.0. I have a few questions about it.
Question 1) Is rooting such a device even possible? I know a lot of phones have root capability, however this is a very simplistic pay-as-you-go phone, it was only made for one purpose
Question 2) Is there an accessible bootloader? I can only seem to be able to boot into recovery mode. I've tried power button + volume up, power button + volume down, and power button + both volume keys, and each time only recovery has come up. I have checked unlock bootloader in the developer options.
I appreciate any help in this endeavor. Thanks!

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@FosterGecko
If you can enable the 2 phone's Android features as shown next
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
you can root the phone.

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DELETED

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FosterGecko said:
Hello,
I recently purchased this TCL A1 (A501DL) from Walmart, with the intent of rooting it. It runs android oreo, 8.1.0. I have a few questions about it.
Question 1) Is rooting such a device even possible? I know a lot of phones have root capability, however this is a very simplistic pay-as-you-go phone, it was only made for one purpose
Question 2) Is there an accessible bootloader? I can only seem to be able to boot into recovery mode. I've tried power button + volume up, power button + volume down, and power button + both volume keys, and each time only recovery has come up. I have checked unlock bootloader in the developer options.
I appreciate any help in this endeavor. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see mtkclient for bootloader unlocking and rooting

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luridphantom said:
see mtkclient for bootloader unlocking and rooting
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed. I was completely incorrect on my statement. I will remove the misinformation. It appears that these TracFone branded Mediatek devices can at last be rooted.

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There may be another way to unlock Tracfone/USCellular devices. I'll layout the references and quote the relevant parts.
From the GrapheneOS Command Line install
Carrier variants of Pixels use the same stock OS and firmware with a non-zero carrier id flashed onto the persist partition in the factory. The carrier id activates carrier-specific configuration in the stock OS including disabling carrier and bootloader unlocking. The carrier may be able to remotely disable this, but their support staff may not be aware and they probably won't do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have dumped my USCellular TCL A30 and have oempersist.bin and persist.bin files
It looks like the search string is CARRIER_ID
So the process would be to use mtkclient to extract the file, backup, and then search the oempersist/persist files for CARRIER_ID and replace the value with 0 (zero). Then write the edited partition over the original. If it borks, then restore with the backup files.
If it works then OEM unlocking and fastboot should be available.
Anyone see any issues with this approach?

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971shep said:
There may be another way to unlock Tracfone/USCellular devices. I'll layout the references and quote the relevant parts.
From the GrapheneOS Command Line install
I have dumped my USCellular TCL A30 and have oempersist.bin and persist.bin files
It looks like the search string is CARRIER_ID
So the process would be to use mtkclient to extract the file, backup, and then search the oempersist/persist files for CARRIER_ID and replace the value with 0 (zero). Then write the edited partition over the original. If it borks, then restore with the backup files.
If it works then OEM unlocking and fastboot should be available.
Anyone see any issues with this approach?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is there any way i could get that dump you made? been searching for a full dump for months.

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r1pp3d2 said:
is there any way i could get that dump you made? been searching for a full dump for months.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The super.bin alone was 5.4 GB which is too big for my ISP email provider. I used mtkclient which is some work to install but easy to use once in place. An easy way around this is to download the live cd from their website and use it. Get your dump in the live cd and then copy the file to a big usb driver or sftp them to another computer.

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971shep said:
So the process would be to use mtkclient to extract the file, backup, and then search the oempersist/persist files for CARRIER_ID and replace the value with 0 (zero). Then write the edited partition over the original. If it borks, then restore with the backup files.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you plan on testing this?

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Honkette1738 said:
Do you plan on testing this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used ghex on both persist.bin and oempersist.bin. They are both essentially empty:
rows and rows of
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00.
I was suspucious that mtkclient may not have accurately pulled the files but other files dumped by mtkclient are not empty. In any event, I hit a dead end - there was no carrier id to edit. Not to mention that the MAGISK/mtkclient instructions for rooting the device put it into a bootloop. I was able to recover with the recovery option.
What I would really like to to get a broad overview about the Android booting process and the security works.

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971shep said:
rows and rows of
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How large are the files? Maybe they need to be opened in a text editor?